The game of life and rebirth: So you want to live?
by TheCharredChicken
Summary: Dying is not the worst thing, it's what's comes after which will hit you like a ton of bricks. The chance to regain my own life by just living through some others was more appealing than fading into nothingness. The realization that the people around me were real and capable as any human being from my home universe is another talk. (SI, OC, AU)
1. Chapter 1: Between life and death…

_This fic is using various plot devices known from fic's using the 'video-game plot' that will play a minor role in the future. These can be seen as a way of getting the OC into the 'Naruto-verse', and the effect of these will not be felt for most of this fic._

_So do not expect a fic with the 'video-game plot-line' while reading this_

* * *

**Chapter 1: Between life and death… or just a really weird dream **

The last thing I saw was white. Not quite what I expected since I knew I was slammed into a quite dark grey pavement, but the dead probably shouldn't be too concerned with semantics like that. It was not like they… we could change anything from this side of the veil. It would take some time getting used to the idea of me being included among those 'dead'.

There was a disturbing level of acceptance in that train of thoughts. I was going to throw a fit of unseen proportions, when the realization of my new status sunk properly in.

I wondered why I still had the ability to form thoughts. My conscience should have been destroyed the moment my head hit the ground and turned my brain into mush. Perhaps that meant the concept of a soul was more than just a silly human hope. That could mean one of humanity's numerous religions was true as well, and if this nothingness around me was any indication then it was not Christianity or any other with an afterlife. I was not really sure about the entry fee to heaven, but the lack of gate to anything had to mean I had missed my chance.

If the following giddiness is a sign, my brain had to be working somewhere outside this place.

The nothingness around me was starting to get to my nerves. I was not sure if the appropriate verb is floating or being in nothingness, but it was most likely the last since none of the five senses had followed me beyond my meeting with the concrete, making me something akin to those vegetables in the hospital. It was the most depressing thought since I arrived here, since it was most likely more true than anything else this place has led me to think.

If I was as good as dead, why could I not just skip ahead of this state and go on to oblivion?

**Congratulations you were killed by: drunken driver**

The words popped up like a sudden neon sign forced into your face after complete darkness, and if my sadistic asshole of a mind had provided me with a mouth I would have uttered more than one string of curses.

**Achievements gained: "Whack to the back" and "The unholy mix: speed and liquor"**

This had to be a dream, and except the part where I quite clearly remembered the pain of dying, it was not really unlike some of those I had before.

**Welcome to "The Game", your one-in-a-lifetime chance to regain life and survive any catastrophic event.**

My mind was a weird place, best not to question it, or I would be on my way to the mental hospital. With a mother working in one of them I was at least fifty percent sure I was not one of the droids they were looking for.

**You have [Five] characters slots open. Remember death in one life while in story mode means the complete death of that character. Any character can be imported from one life to another, once story mode has been completed. To regain your former life all story modes must be completed.**

So I had five chances before it was game over for good. These were some harsh rules.

**Completed story modes: 0. Available universes: 25**

A list of universes followed. My state of mind was somewhere between horrified, shocked and trilled. Childhood classics like "Harry Potter" and "Dragon Ball" stood side by side with those I had come into contact with later, like "Baldur's Gate", "Star Wars", "Naruto" and "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer". I felt like squealing if not for the more terrifying aspect of this whole experience my mind had conjured up.

Some of these had planets busters and one hit kill powers.

Sure being a ninja in something like "Naruto" sounded awesome, with emphasize on 'sounded', but…

**The following universe has been selected: Naruto**

… Son of a bitch. The easy way to have begun this would have been in something like "Harry Potter". With the advantage of the modern world and a history following what you already knew, you just had to be somewhat extra careful the second year not to die by petrification and spend seventh year outside the country if necessary. The main character literally survived on luck and minimal studying, and by being anyone else but trouble magnet Mr. Potter, you were practically guaranteed survival.

I was beginning to officially hate myself.

**Please select gender.**

For the sake of my sanity, please female. Sexuality was not something far up my list of concerns, but I would really prefer not having to deal with extra appendages.

**Gender: female. Please select a value from 1-10 from an overall of 50 stats points to the following permanent stats: Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Luck, Strength and Wisdom.**

So my brain's made up character creation was running on a slightly different mode of D&amp;D, awesome… Well this was better than rolling stats, where your chances to be fucked over always seemed a bit higher than the chances to make a god mode sue. If the total was fifty points and I had 7 stats, then I could have seven in all stats and be a jack-of-all-trades, and a good one of those. Since this was all about survival, the abilities to dodge and think fast seemed like the best way to go about it with a healthy dose of luck thrown on top. Seriously luck as an attribute had the potential to break any game, if it applied to all actions. On the off chance it did not…

**Permanent stats chosen:**

**Charisma: 6 – With your plain appearance you stand out about as much as a fly on the wall, those blessed with perceptiveness will see you while the rest of the masses will ignore your existence.**

**Constitution: 7 – Hardier than most but a good hit will take you down like any other mortal**

**Dexterity: 9 – Your ability to dodge is almost innate but the constant twitchiness makes people wonder what's wrong with you**

**Intelligence: 8 – Your minds is fast, but you're no genius. Forever on the edge of understanding the full scope, your life will be filled with constant frustration of the tiny missing pieces of the puzzle**

**Luck: 7 – Did you want to win the lottery, you actually have a chance now. Albeit a small one, but it's better than completely non-existent**

**Strength: 7 – Your strength will be like the tales of the GODS… Wait, wrong guy. With a bit of training you can probably break that rock over there, but don't expect anything more.**

**Wisdom: 6 – You're not about to set fire to your hair because of lack of common sense, but your intuition screws more often than not with you.**

The descriptions made me curious about what would have been if I had selected any stats to be under 5. It would have been horrible to play… live, whatever this was, with it, but the matching description to the stats value must have been positively hilarious.

It made me feel so hopeful about my new 'life' as a ninja in a world with an evil rabbit goddess and villains capable of resurrecting people left and right, that I was almost moved to tears.

I was going to die fast and painful with an unmarked grave to as my achievement, and then I was going to go back to the universe selection and take the world of "Harry Potter" with storm, preferable hiding in a hole somewhere outside Britain while the whole mudblood extermination was going on.

**One new permanent stat is available after every completed story modes. Select your starting point.**

Some kind of hint would be helpful as to what the game mechanic exactly wanted. As it was now it sounded like I could choose anything, like replacing one of the main characters.

**Starting Point: "Replacing existing character" not possible. No possible starting point's related to this.**

So I was going to be an OC running around, lucky me. It was for the best, since running around as like say Sakura would have been more than slightly awkward. Not that I remembered a lot about her except the deadly disease of fangirlism and her being practically useless in the first part of the series. Then she got Tsunade as a mentor and she copied all of the sannin's skills, showing she was indeed the student of Kakashi, the copycat ninja.

It was better to accept I was going to be useless like Sakura, because I wasn't going to get any bloodlines powers or beasts trapped in my stomach… Even if it would have been awesome to be a jinchuuriki. And deadly, don't forget deadly.

**Starting Point: "Jinchuuriki" not possible. Specify your chosen starting point.**

Starting around the kyuubi's attack on Konoha was probably the best idea since it would give me a fighting chance at surviving the future horror show and shorten the time I had to spend in that universe. I could always run away and hide in some far corner of the continent, I just had to survive, no place had it said anything about helping to deal with the problems.

**Starting Point: "Nine-Tails' Attack on Konoha" has been chosen.**

**Relevant data by the choice of starting point: Age: 0. Skills: none…**

That accelerated quickly. So I don't even get to choose origin, parents or stuff like that? Just going to throw me into the body of an infant with senses so dull I could just as well be living here in this nothingness for months, no?

**The estimated time until completion of selected 'Story Mode': 17-18 years**

Estimated… Well, fuck you too.

**By dying in Story Mode your data related to that universe will be deleted. The option of saving will not be possible at any point of Story Mode.**

Do I at least get on introduction to my new life? I had never liked ignorance and living like a helpless babe totally depended on strangers I knew nothing about did not sit well with me. In fact nothing about the situation suited me, but my brain apparently loved to troll me to the point where I actually believed this couldn't possibly be the work of my subconscious. Masterful work brain, masterful work.

**In Story Mode no menus are available, wait until completion to gain the option to exit world and return to world selection**

Activate help, activate menus, activate saves, just do something! I knew it would be too much work for my probably injured or sleeping brain to remember anything about life saves, but the least it could do was giving me the option to read a manual about this game system.

**Birth will commence in 3…**

I pitied the woman and man who would gain me as their daughter. The wish to have a reincarnated soul as your child is pretty far down anyone's list, and in the Naruto-verse that term was what most likely would be used to describe me, if the topic ever came up in a conversation. Which was very likely since the universe had mind readers, if I remembered correctly.

**2…**

I was a nice person in real life, but as soon as I started dreaming or fantasizing I turned into an asshole. I wondered what that said about me…

**1…**

Repressed anger, not expressed in daily life or something like that. Perhaps something about finding an outlet in some kind of medium, that were not games since I was even a goody-two-shoes in those most of the time, when I was not crackling madly and running around assassinating everyone or backstabbing someone to get epic items... The term goody-two-shoes did not seem to fit that well, now I thought about it.

Pain and the sudden presence of dull sense splintered my conscious. My first breath in my new life was made on pure reflex since all I perceived was the sharp light blinding me and screaming tearing my eardrums apart.

Voices resounded far away, foreign and exotic. Unwanted in their loudness, their insistence in being heard.

The world was moving, one direction then the next. Nothing seemed to make sense. Limps to short, unmoving and clutching into nothingness where there should have been flesh. I tried to roll up into a ball, and found nothing responding but burning agony in my veins.

Cold, slimy but no darkness, too much light…

Ground became air and it went tumbling down. A moment of stillness, and then everything turned to flames, bright and warm for just a second of a heartbeat. The darkness finally descended and the screams ended.

My throat was hoarse like the shrill sound had been my own. Another cry pierced the dark, sending a twinge of pain back. Confirmation that this alien voice was my own; this useless piece of fumbling flesh belonged to me now. I tried to open my eyes, but nothing came back. No colors, no light and the dark too close... Forcing its way through, taking my breath…

A voice, one calm voice in the darkness.

My heartbeat was slowing down, air returning to my lungs. Coarse big hands moved against my fragile bare skin, and the world slowed down. My eyes were blind, but something instinctive told me to keep still. I was safe.

Were these big hands the ones of my new father? Were these the hands of a ninja, who had long awaited the birth of his daughter only to find a thief in her stead? I was not his, my mind not molded by his words or views. He was but a stranger and I was something unwanted.

The world shifted again and light returned. Blurring lines revealed these eyes of mine had some use, but the sight of a new-born was nothing to be relied on. Something soft came into contact with my back, and my body was enveloped in warmth. My small hands moved against fine fabric, too soft to hurt the skin of my frail vessel.

Something akin to a face could be made out of the shifting colors.

I closed my eyes, my limps sinking into the bed under me. The simple art of counting my own breaths was almost eluding me. In and out, in and out in an eternity. Then a hand at my face, the feminine hand of a stranger.

What was I thinking? These people were nothing but constructs of my mind. The sensation of having this soft palm cupping my face was naught but a fleeting string of memories sewn together to create the right illusion of this being real, helped by my apparent lack of senses. These sounds resembling a language, they were nothing but part of this dream. I would not let myself be let astray by a manifestation of my own my mind and fantasy.

I was either dying, this being my minds last gift to me, a distraction from reality. Or I was dreaming, safe in my bed, and this was nothing but awful close to a nightmare I would soon wake from. In both cases I would forget, either by truly dying or simply waking up to the real world.

My position was shifted yet against, movement around my new body and a woman gasping for air.

They were talking, the woman and the man. Calm to agitated, the finer tones lost in the rift between languages. A single drop of wetness dropped on my chest, a tear perhaps? The woman's voice was weakening with each moment, so it could be hers. The reason why… could wait. My body was turning heavy, their endless voices lulling me toward sleep. I could see their faces another day, meet their eyes another time. Study what my mind had conjured… But for now, all I wanted was sleep.

* * *

_Author's note: I have read plenty of stories using these sorts of mechanisms and I thought it would be funny to try it out. I have coupled more than a few before seen ideas, so we'll see if it turns into an unholy abomination or actually has a bit of value. This mix of ideas will probably span one long story set in the Naruto-verse and after that, who knows? _

_So thanks for reading. English is not my mother tongue, but I will do my best to make this as reader friendly as possible._


	2. Chapter 2: In which insanity enters

**Chapter 2: In which insanity enters **

Infancy was not the most interesting period of your life. Your choices of action was limited and your life controlled by the basics three needs of any living being; poop, sleep and eat. When awake reflexes takes over as soon as something triggers your senses. Something moves; you grasp. Something even nears your mouth; you get ready to suck the hell out of it.

It was no wonder those blessed moments faded away with age like fresh dew on the morning of a summer day. There was literally no use for them in the adult mind, and they were beyond humiliating.

Small victories as clearing sight and the ability to manipulate your own vocal chords in another direction than the dreaded baby cry would seem like milestones if you were trapped within an infant. For me the skill of glaring was the most awaited. That was quickly followed by pulling at the grey beard of the small man who was then holding me. The man in question was a quite frequent visitor, always popping up and disturbing any form of thoughts my mind was currently able to make. He deserved to be punished.

The first time my eyesight cleared up enough to make out his outfit, and most importantly his hat, my heart stopped for a moment. My knowledge of any Asian language was rather limited, but that sign on his purplish headgear had to be the kanji for fire.

The realization of the man's identity brought with it my first baby fuss since birth, not counting the occasionally cries for food or fresh diapers which really was normal for any infant.

The following panic made it easier to collect myself and form a plan.

My legs were technically unable to bear my own weight yet, but I was gaining control of my own hands, so the idea of climbing out of my cradle in order to escape the white room I was imprisoned in, was not completely hopeless. The brute strength of my arms, all due to the 7 I had in Strength, compared to my lithe body had to be enough. When I was out I could find a mirror and find out if my growing fear was justified.

Alternating between climbing and clinging to the wooden bars brought me to the top, before I realized I had no method of moving over the edge of the cradle, since releasing the bars with either hand meant I would fall down.

It was a minor but fatal setback.

I was not sure, where exactly my body was supposed to be compared to the normal development of a child, but my fruitless efforts in gaining some kind of reflective surface indicated I was a long way from moving around independently. My only possible option of solving my current identity crisis was therefore to examine all evidence I collected in my short life. I had very few visitors in my bare room, and except the man, who by all evidence appeared to be the Hokage of Konoha, none of them stayed very long. These other, less friendly, visitors involved woman acting and dressed as nurses coming in and out every time I cried my need for substance or cleanliness. Their faces were mainly stuck being expressionless, but some had the gall to glare at the infant they were tending, which had to mean I was connected to something which affected their opinions a great deal.

Who was I trying to kid? I had a window perfect for spying from the outside and too tan skin, considering I had never been outside. If I was not _him _then the world was turning topsy-turvy.

So I was the female equivalent of this universe's title character.

In a twisted way my brief insane wish of being a Jinchuuriki and an existing character had been fulfilled, and I was no longer able to just leave the plot if it got too dangerous. No, holding the fox meant I in a few years would attract all manners of nail polish wearing weirdos quite capable of obliterating me.

My brain was punishing me for being a coward. Lovely, this had to be my subconscious shouting 'I wish to be brave' in my face, which was true, but heroic and brave acts were more often than not also stupid beyond belief.

Why was I even thinking about this? If I got in trouble my mind would just grant me reality bending powers, so no use in speculating.

Except my situation didn't really allow me to do anything else.

Until my brain allowed me the power of time skips, the best I could do was trying to figure out how the magic system in this world worked. The promise of power coming with the ability to partly bend reality should keep my head busy trying to find out how chakra was supposed to work.

* * *

Less than a week after was I out of the white room. The trip involved in my transfer of bedroom revealed I had been in the hospital the entire time, a purplish building with a blue roof of all things.

It reminded me I had to get used to people with impossible hair colors from now on.

My status as a member of the human species Homo Sapiens could be questioned with the screwy genetics in this world making energy manipulation possible and pupil less eyes a frequent phenomenon. I rubbed self-conscious at my cheeks, another mark of the abnormality of this world.

My situation was getting absurd.

Now I had a nursemaid coming around on the clock, who did not seem to resent my involvement in the kyuubi's attack. My ability to distinguish tones and words had grown considerably, so the repetition of the sounds making up the name Naruto had to mean canon was still going strong at the moment. Being named 'fishcake' was not the greatest thing, but it could have been so much worse, so I was not complaining. Instead I wondered when my presence was going to change anything.

* * *

My brown haired nursemaid's name was Chika. No last name was given, but she did not seem like she was from any clan, so even if I knew it, it would mean nothing to me. She was a talkative one, soft voiced and with careful movements when handling my small body.

Most likely she did know anything about the kyuubi's connection with me yet, judging from the total lack of any negative emotions towards me.

Perhaps her payment and the constant watchers made her hide any such emotions.

Her circumstances were not mine, so I paid little actual though to her motivations in working as a caretaker for a Jinchuuriki. Those few speculations which came forth stemmed from an abundance of free time. My much nicer new bedroom contained a series of books, most written specially for children. After some weeks of inactivity in my new cradle starring at those goodies from across the room, getting no closer to unlocking my genetic superpowers or understanding the spoken language of this world, I pointed at one of them and demanded it to be read in my view.

My primary style of learning had after all always been visual. Connecting sounds with signs could not hurt.

* * *

Playing with chakra hurts.

The moment when you finally connect and feel some kind of foreign warmth from your new magic powers was evidently not the moment where you should try to utilize it. The lack of damage to my nervous system or chakra paths was probably because my regenerative abilities due to the resident fox in my gut, but it did not stop the people from fussing. If two persons count as 'people'.

The warmth following the green light of a medical jutsu was oddly more comfortable than my own. Learning healing just gained top priority on my to-do list.

* * *

Today was a day of achievements.

The extra surveillance from my failed attempt at unlocking chakra left me with very few age fitting activities to fill my time. Ranging from learning to use my legs, where the important lesson of 'learning to crawl before walking' was reinforced and forced down my throat in such a sadistically ironical way it left me seething in anger, to forcing my new vocal chords to form understandable sounds others were capable of decoding in a meaningful way. Anything else would just have been plain stupid not to mention have the chance of raising suspicion to a level where mind readers paid me a home visit.

It's a miracle they had not already done that. Perhaps that was my brain being lenient.

My first word was "_Bottle." _A statement of my then state of hunger and the numerous times Chika had prattled on about milk and warm bottles, and how I was a growing girl.

That was not, the before mentioned, achievement. The grand testimony to the power of human willpower almost made it earn the title of "The Achievement" with a capital a, if not for the tiny fact that I had already reserved that for when I unlocked my chakra to its full potential.

No, that day I opened the door to my bedroom for the first time by using several boxes and a book left by my cradle in order to turn the handle, and I found a mirror. A mirror not quite reaching all the way to the floor, but enough to let one see all the important bits. Starring into wide blue eyes and touching sun blond strands of wild hair, which promises to be a pain in the future, sealed the deal for me.

My mind had gone off the rockers.

* * *

_Author's note: Short chapter, because nothing really exiting can happen when you can't move or understand what's going on around you. She still believes the whole experience has been conjured forth by her brain, and really, most normal people would not just suddenly start to believe they have entered some kind of game for a last chance to resume your old life. _


	3. Chapter 3: The requirements for genius

**Chapter 3: The requirements for genius has changed **

I had heard somewhere the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It was exactly what I was doing by staying in my cradle day in and day out, occasionally shaking it up by escaping it to empty my bookshelves or mess with anything else inside my prison. The rest of the apartment was strictly off-limits, since the door had been locked by the time my mirror-checking adventure was discovered. A pity, really, since I did not get to explore anything more than a hallway and something looking like a living room.

It was somewhat unclear if this was my future apartment or Chika's residence I had been placed in.

That small detail did not really matter, so my focus snapped back to the problem at hand. I was currently very limited in this dream, which had until now stayed as true to reality as it could be, considering I was supposed to be in a universe filled with magical ninjas. An often used method to break dreams and wake up is realizing your own situation, but this did not seem to apply, since I was still here. Another way was the near-death experience. If I could get as close to death as possible in the dream and not wake up, it would confirm my head had been injured and unable to sustain any more brain activities than those needed to dream.

The point of the whole thing was I had to injure myself or possibly scare myself badly enough to get adrenaline kick to wake me up.

Or something like that.

I needed to do something else than lie down and stare at the ceiling, and the windows to my room was convenient unlocked. The idiot who had not thought a door-opening toddler capable of the simple act of repeating the success with the only other way in and out of the room deserved an applaud.

It was easy to make a ramp and climb onto the windowsill, and I paused only briefly to glance at the treetops only a few meters away. Perfect concealment for any ninja. Some poor guy was probably sitting in one of them, bored out of his mind. Then I moved my gaze to the ground, which was distance vise only a single floor of a building away. Taking my body's current condition into the equation and the small drop would be more than enough to break several limps.

It would do.

I snickered to the best at my ability with a last look at the treetops before moving my body closer to the edge and letting go.

The following fall was rather short.

I was caught in midair by less than gentle hands and returned to my former spot in the window by the time I could blink. My face was turned in the right position to see the white Anbu mask with red markings.

How… unbelievable. No sudden powers of flight, brain? No you had to use a conveniently placed Anbu.

The man in standard black and grey Anbu gear vanished back into the treetops, closing the window after him as almost an afterthought. Not locking them, closing them. I gave the trees my best deadpan glare before kicking the window back open.

The npc's really had limited brain capacity.

The windowsill held nothing I could push outside or throw after him, so I opted for dangling my feet out. Two pair of tanned feet with five small toes on each since footwear was overrated for toddlers who were still supposed to be handicapped and lie contently in their cradles.

No reaction from my audience in the trees, but I guess I have his or theirs attention. Having more than one Anbu at the time seemed like overkill, but I did not doubt the term appealed to my brain. I considered the ground again and groaned slightly. I was definitely still affected by hopefully temporary insanity, since I was even still thinking about this. But then again, what was the worst that could happen?

With a sigh I let myself fall again.

The Anbu was just as quick, catching me in air before changing his tactic. He landed silently on the ground with me in his arms, starring down at his burden through dark holes in his mask. I felt like waving giddily but retained the impulse and went for a big smile instead, steadily declining from cheerful to creepy.

The guy kept staring.

My focus drifted from trying to decode what was going on behind his mask, to guessing the animal he was supposed to be resemble with that specific headgear. With the downturned frown, round ears and button shaped nose it most of all looked like the head of a teddy bear. Not the first coming to mind when you tried to picture a trained killer.

The mask sparked no memories. I had not even been given Kakashi for my effort in hurting myself.

He had not moved a muscle in half a minute. Was he contemplating the possible repercussions of killing me or had he figured out already that I would keep jumping just to annoy him. I reached out for his mask and touched it without meeting resistance. The temptation of pulling it off was almost too much, and my fingers twitched slightly.

I had the faint outline of a plan, seeing dozens of ways this could go wrong or waste my efforts, but it was better than doing nothing. "Want doggy." Take that copy-nin. "You're not doggy-san." I had not had any interaction with the silver haired ninja and for this to actually work, he had to have been near me at a point where it was possible for me to have seen him… Yeah, I could see no way, this could go wrong.

Was Anby allowed to sigh?

"She wants you, not me." His head turned in the direction of the tree tops. "Get down here, and let me get back."

My mouth fell open, leaving my facial expression looking somewhat gobsmacked. What were the odds… 7 in luck can apparently do a great deal in anything except winning in lotto. I was somewhat embarrassed at how easy it had been to do. It felt like cheating somehow. After so long where nothing had happened, being in reach of another known character other than the Hokage made me want to cackle maniacally.

Judging from the silence, either Kakashi was not in the mood to deal with the spawns of his teacher or the Anbu agent was only humoring me… a toddler who would have been pleased with any form of excuse for his lack of presence.

Kakashi the copycat ninja was really in those trees.

How could I need the security of two Anbu watchers? Were assassination attempts really that big a concern?

My mind was a bit too occupied to think of holding on to the Anbu agent before he had placed me inside my room again. I climbed furious back on to the windowsill and pushed at the window to open, pounding on the damn thing when it refused to obey me. I used my honed skill of glaring and tried to find eyes outside to make contact with as I positioned my tiny fist directly in front of the glass.

I was not going back to mind-numbing boredom, when there was something new to explore and prod.

Glass vibrated from the pressure of the hit, remaining annoyingly whole. I punched it again, seeing no other effect, before searching for the tiny bit of chakra related warmth I found some time ago. Focusing on my hand and trying to force energy into it I began to batter the window. The resulting web of cracks spreading from the impact place renewed my determination, and I began to grin despite the pain each hit filled me with, shooting from the knuckles up my arm.

I almost lost my balance when the window opened again, and would have fallen if not for a steadying hand on my chest. I raised my gaze and found myself grinning at a mask with a really bad resemblance to a dog.

Mission accomplished.

* * *

"Her actions are indeed peculiar for one at such a young age." The Hokage puffed on his pipe with a thoughtful expression. "Her abilities more so."

I was currently latching on to the grey armor of Kakashi's Anbu gear, a cold but worthwhile action since he could not escape without fighting my claws clutching at the edges of the thing. His mask was still on but he had adapted a position which gave me some kind of support after hours of struggling to cling on.

The rigidness in his stance had not lessened. "So she's a child prodigy…" Try 'older than they look', copy-nin. "Did the disbanding of Root…?"

"No." A slight pause. "Protecting Naruto from it was merely a side effect."

"Hm." He shifted the arm which he was holding me, not even lowering the mask to indicate he was looking at me. "So… How long has she been able to use chakra?"

I lifted my face from the cold surface of the armor to grin at him. "It's warm. Heat under the skin" Both men took of moment to stare at me and I nestled back into my uncomfortable position. It was hard to figure out what I was going to do now, where I had his attention. There was not much I could say without giving impossible knowledge away, not to mention I was getting bored of having to act like a child in front of yet another adult... teenager, person.

My mind had been lenient with punishment for stupid actions so far but blabbering on about the future and stuff like that would have consequences. Then again, anything was beginning to look like a better alternative to now.

"Naruto was hospitalized some months ago with partly burned chakra pathways." The old man frowned slightly. "She hasn't shown any other signs of chakra control until now." I could feel his eyes burning into my neck when I turned away. "Naruto, have anybody taught you about chakra?"

Chance to incriminate Danzō, reveal Root was still going strongly even when officially disbanded? It had to be if Sai had been in it, not that I remembered much else. On the other hand, what would I gain from telling about it?

"Nope." I was cheerfully using one hand to pull on Kakashi grey locks of hair, working my way stealthily toward the Anbu mask. "Can I get one of these?" Without any further ado I grasped at the edges of the mask and yanked it off. A joyful squeal followed my accomplishment and I promptly put the mask on, failing to find the eyeholes so I stared blindly into darkness.

The realization that I would have to deal with blindness in order to wear it made it lose some of its appeal, and I quickly took it off. Note to self: Never get into Anbu.

A larger hand clasped around the other end of the mask and I growled silently at the offending limp on my new piece of property. I was a child, or looked like one anyway. He could let me play with his poor substitute for a hockey murder mask until it was time to leave.

"Not until you're older, Naruto." The Hokage said with a small smile. "And you have to be a ninja first."

I stiffened somewhat, allowing Kakashi to take his mask back. The words made me think of Naruto's dream and what he probably would have answered to those words. It made me grind my teeth for a moment before wincing in pain since I was teething.

The whole talk had been nothing but awkward. I was not a toddler, not Naruto and far too old to force someone to stay like Kakashi through such underhanded means as clutching on to clothes and using doe eyes. He had better things to do, like staring at memorial stones and feel sorry for himself. I had better things to do, like recounting all twelve cracks in the ceiling yet again and pondering the chances of returning to reality before my mental health completely destabilized.

"Then I'll become one." I could feel a case of eye twitchiness going on in the left side of my head. "When can I?" Give me some hope, old man, or boredom will kill me soon.

He had the gall to chuckle at me. "Not for some years." Then he patted my head.

I could feel the corners of my lips twitch, like they did not know which way to turn. Most likely down, since crying was becoming increasingly tempting.

"Doggy-san," I turned toward Kakashi with a widening grin. "Will you come visit me often?" Share my misery, you bastard.

The copy-nin remained silent, before following the Hokage's lead to pat my head. One of these days, he was going down. Even if I had to resort to childish pranks, nothing would stop me from getting revenge. I could almost picture his eye smile…

The silence continued, and I was reminded those smiles were years away.

Now I felt pity for something my mind had created.

* * *

_Author's note: And she can finally interact (somewhat) with the world. _


	4. Chapter 4: The noble art of doodling

**Chapter 4: The noble art of doodling **

It was another day in the Universe of Naruto, starting lovely with chipping birds and a golden sunrise casting the land in an almost magical glow. On this fair day my caretaker woke me with a brownish mush of unidentified origin and almost contagious happiness, you most of all just wished to crush.

The beast in me was only mollified by the bringing of gifts, even if it was not a virgin sacrifice.

I looked up from the package in my hand at the smiling woman. "These are… crayons?"

"Yes, now you don't have to play with your books anymore, Naruto, since you can write your own... in time." She held up one of the colorful drawing tools. "See, you push this end against to the paper and let it gently drag a line..."

I tried my best to look excited.

"… by drawing other lines, you get a shape. Can you see what this is?"

A mutilated piece of paper insulting any artistic ability I had ever possessed. That and long lines of red coupled with what looks like the form of droplets, making it all very macabre. "Rain, trees…" I tried to shift position to see if it became clearer with some distance. "Three very thin men?"

"Silly." She petted my hair with an irritating patient smile. "This is the kanji for river."

Oh. I stared almost fascinated down at the paper in my lap. What a useful way of utilizing this pristine whiteness. Learning letters was important for my future ability to interact with my surroundings, since this world offered no means of sending oral messages across long distances. I was a least fifty percent sure internet and telephones did not exist but since this world was a weird mix of modern and feudal japan I could be wrong. Not to mention Fūinjutsu depended entirely on your ability to write and understand how seals were constructed.

Chika had just giving me the first tool in mastering a ninja art, one I never fully understood while skimming through the manga, but nevertheless was an magical way of bending the world to your will. Even if it was mainly by sealing and unsealing things.

In the meantime Chika had begun on drawing a simple landscape beside the kanji with a river, lots of grass and a sun above. "… limitless. Do you want to try, Naruto?"

I reached out and took the blue crayon with a claw like grasp. The missing dexterity from how I usually handled drawing tools made me frown, since I once could have made a decent shaded picture of something with this in my hand. Determined not to let it defeat me I took the paper with my other hand and sketched the faint outline of a person, moving on to writing the kanji for woman beside it.

It looked… recognizable. Certainly better than some of the drawings I had kept from when I was a child.

"Very good, Naruto." Chika's comment brought my mind back to the present. "Is this supposed to be me?"

If it made her happy, then by all means, just delude yourself, Chika. "Yes."

She gave me a happy smile which I replied with a toothy grin of my own. She was not half bad, even if our relationship was a bit tense on my part. It was hard to be treated like a child from someone who was supposed to be only a couple of years older than yourself.

"Now, I'll leave you to your drawing and come back in an hour to check on you, it that's okay with you Naruto?"

"Hm," I replied noncommittal, already busy filling the paper out with all the signs I could remember. Matching signs together to create new words, and making most on them lopsided on my first try. I was a far cry from the former 'neat-version' of my handwriting but it was better than my 'in-a-hurry-must-run' scribbles.

Most of those had earned me the well-known 'you-could-be-a-doctor' comment. It was like people did not even try to be original any more… Even if I had to agree on the terribleness of the handwriting of the medical practitioners, since I had never in my short life been able to work out what the prescriptions and signatures I had been given was supposed to mean.

Now I was rambling, perfect. Another sign of my deteriorating mental health.

The door closed with a soft bump, while I worked my way through smearing the stack of whiteness with all the colors of the rainbow.

* * *

"How… nice."

Chika had returned, as promised, to browse through all my finished masterpieces of creativity. The slight frown indicating she was thinking something radical different than what she was saying, that liar. All should be in awe of my writings and admire the skill in which I had wasted sheet upon sheet while making no progress on my dexterity in wielding a crayon.

"I can see you took my words to heart..." She gave a failed try at a smile. "But you don't have to write. You can just draw what you want. Like this teddy…" A random toy was lifted, and I had a hard time placing where exactly it had come from in the room. "See his big smile? He wants you to draw him."

I could feel my lips trembling in my effort to hold back laughter. "Does that make him alive"

She blinked. "Eh, no."

It was time for Chika to meet the undeniable power of childish questions. "How can he want things if he's not alive?"

Her head was slightly shaking in an almost mechanical motion. "He can't. But I wanted you to, Naruto. Doesn't he look nice to draw?"

"So you're projecting your low self-esteem and wish for other to recognize you, even if it by depicting you in a child's drawing, onto a toy?" I drawled. "That's not very mature, is it?" I froze as the last word left my mouth with wide eyes.

Her face mirrored mine.

"Bear!" I plucked the teddy from her loose grasp and turned away from her. "You're right, he wants to be drawn, Chi-san!" I had a blue crayon in my hand, but it was not like the picture would be pretty anyway.

The door was slammed behind me. Could I blame Tourette's?

* * *

It was a very tense dinner of mush. Chika was alternating between staring at me with knitted brows and looking everywhere else in the room, while she made sure I was feed and relived myself properly in the prepared potty. The last experience was a great deal better than when I had been trapped in my own filled diapers for hours at a time.

I was caught hallway between horrible guilt and annoyance at my brain. My subconscious should have no problems at me for taking care of incoming stress. It was healthy.

She walked out the door with a loaded tray of remains of the meal, and I returned to my mostly filled out papers to squeeze in letters in any of the blank spaces left.

We repeated the act of trying to ignore the elephant in the room the next day and the day after. The silence stretched on and became slowly more strained, while her shifty gazes turned more and more expressionless and cold. The difference in attitude made it easier to force all blame of the situation on the shoulders of my caretaker and my own realistic imagination.

Then came the confrontation.

"Naruto," It came in the form of a man in purplish clothes and a matching hat. "Has anything happened between you and Chika-san?"

The Hokage was asking a quite loaded question of a toddler. I resisted the urge to sigh dramatically and turned my big blue doe eyes on the old man. "She doesn't like me anymore." A little sniffle to emphasize my point, and it was practically perfect.

"And why is that?" He pressed.

If I had the affinity for crocodile tears I would so had abused it. Instead I opted for pointing with a confused expression at the toy bear, which had been thrown into a corner at some time in the last couple of days. "I didn't want to draw the bear."

The statement led to raised eyebrows. I could understand his puzzlement, since an event like that never should have had the consequences he was witnessing.

If he wanted the truth he should never ask someone affected by a conflict. There was no objectivity to be found in someone involved emotional in some matter or another. The old man should know that. Then again, it was hard to imagine an event that could leave a rift in the relationship between a toddler and a well-balanced kind adult.

I would have suffered my share of bewilderment too if I had been in his situation.

"So," I made a discreet eye roll. "Why hasn't doggy-san visited?"

The third Hokage found his pipe, taking one long puff where he could think about his answer, before saying. "He's a ninja, Naruto, sometimes they have little time. He will come when he can."

Hell would freeze over before he confronted his guilt and visited the spawn of his dead sensei. I would have to drag him from the street and into the apartment to have the pleasure of hosting the copycat ninja as a guest.

"Who's he fighting?" I asked with an overeager tone, which made me cringe myself.

"Ninja does not always fight." The man had adopted a patient tone of voice most often used with difficult children. "And when they do, it's for the protection of others."

Sure, when shonen mixed hardcore killers with peace-loving fluffiness and the power of friendship.

It required a slow blink to get hold of my amusement. "He's out protecting the village?"

"Yes."

I had no idea what was supposed to happen in canon at this time, but he had to build his reputation some way or another, so it was probably true he was out on a mission. If he wanted to avoid me I could easily see him take a string of assassination missions.

Huh, perhaps his nickname would change to something morbid with my presence in this universe.

I was almost excited.

The sound of paper rustling distracted me, and I forced my way back to the present. The Hokage was shuffling trough the mountain of filled paper I had produced in the last three days with an almost perturbed expression. He stopped by one of my only drawings, which pictured several drawings of human anatomy. All of them had a corpse like quality evoked by my horrible red shading.

I have always been fond of drawing zombies. If you draw naked people in public your chances of gaining long looks and teasing questions is infinite higher than if you just add some claws, a hunchback and screaming faces. The last time I drew a normal naked human was the day a classmate snickering asked if I had a fetish for eunuchs. Excuse me, but the dangling bits of manhood are not something absolutely necessary to put on every single sketch. And if my answer by drawing a severed penis terrified my classmate then so be it.

My smile while doing so was perfectly polite, it should not have been considered rude. The rumors thereafter were completely baseless.

"Naruto, do you suffer from nightmares?"

I blinked and met the searching gaze of the Hokage with confusion. How did he get to that conclusion? I gave my sketches another long glance before my mouth fell open. That explained so much…

I forced my focus back on the Hokage, even if the following thought train promised to be interesting. The question of whether zombies existed as a concept with a technique as Edo Tensei being possible could leave me musing for hours. "Sometimes…" I twisted my face into an expression of embarrassment, while my brain was busy wondering if such an expression was too adult for my current age. "But they aren't frightening… it's what's behind them that is." Hint at the goddamn demon fox and hope he will be too preoccupied to notice suspicious behavior.

A brief nod as answer, but no sympathy or comforting words yet. This guy was an awful parental figure. "Do you know what is behind them?"

"Fire, fire and hate." I can taste blood from biting my lips a bit too hard. It was hard to remember sometimes I suddenly had teeth again after a year with empty gums. "Twisting them. Reaching…" I left it on a high note, my young voice almost screeching against my own eardrums.

Ahh, there was the hug.

My pride suffered a tiny bit when I teared up and started on the waterworks. Then again, crying worked wonders on stress, so it could only be a step in the right direction regarding my poor mental health.

The physical contact lasted for a long time, while my arms hang useless to my side. They twitched once or twice in their indecision to reciprocate the gesture, but in the end they were still by my side when the hug ended.

A pat and a promise to speak to my caretaker later, and he were on his way out of the door. Leaving me strangely lonely.

Stupid brain.

* * *

Whether the esteemed Hokage had a talk with Chika or not about her very justified behavior towards the creepy child in her care, nothing changed. It left me feeling somewhat amused, a bit disappointed and a great deal of indifferent.

The last bit lasted until my supply of paper ended; then my feelings turned to pure hatred.

On my fourth day without anything other to entertain myself with than books I had read before, toys I had long since outgrown and Anbu, who had lost most of their entertainment value from sheer repetition of the same reactions to my actions, I gave in to boredom.

With boredom vanished my self-control, and I turned on the bare walls of my room with my colorful crayons. The result was obvious, and since vandalism of my own room drew no response from my ninja watchers I continued ruining the wallpaper with great enthusiasm. I gleeful began to sketch imaginary seal on the walls, and spend a meter of the walls on replicating the seal, which should be on my stomach that very moment.

Boredom turns me reckless, and since it was either this or trying to rise a new form of response from my watcher by attempted fake suicide, I was quite content with scrawling out my impossible knowledge on the walls and parts of the floor.

It was the way I lost the last stumps of crayon.

I paused to look around at my creations with the last bit of green crayon still balancing between two fingers, feeling something between satisfaction, regret and annoyance that the ability to create seals still eluded me. The green was promptly used to draw a figure repeating words for explosion and fire

With nothing left I stared down at my own hands, pondering how quickly my blood could regenerate before throwing any remaining caution to the wind. I was already severely fucked if the outcome played out in any realistic way. It's was a wonder already I had not been stopped by now with my watchers outside, so no need to limit the last of my spiteful creativity.

I ripped the skin of my fingertips with the force of my bite, and lowered them to the floor with a maniacally grin. The secret to explosive tags would be mine before this was over.

The sudden warmth flashing through my arm and fingers down into the floor left me frozen, and I had a second to contemplate the consequences of my actions before everything turned white.

Well… I reached my goal at least.

* * *

_Author's note: And the first full-blown crazy freak-out, yay, kids grow up so fast. She's not very nice, no, but then again, she's getting tired of being trapped in the body of a toddler. Feel free to correct me, if I have made any mistakes regarding spelling or the world of Naruto ^^ _

_It will be explained why she has this specific body in at later chapter, when she finally gets around to speculate on this. There's a somewhat reasonable explanation in-universe, and it prevents her from running away as soon as she's able, as her thoughts in the first chapter made clear was her plan of dealing with most dangers. _


	5. Chapter 5: Unwanted youth

**Chapter 5: Unwanted youth **

The smell of sterilized equipment and almost zealous use of cleaning agents was the first thing to register in my brain. A moment of confusion followed before the correct conclusion was reached: I was in a hospital.

My heart squeezed painfully and I fought my way to full consciousness. The sight of the pale ceiling was met with tears.

I took a slow rattling intake of breath in order to steady my chaotic emotions, which would leave me inclined to sob into my soft pillows at the first sight of a doctor or nurse if left unchecked. A smile slowly managed to find its way forth and I laughed shakenly.

That had been one crazy hallucination.

I shook my head, careful with not worsening the condition of my body, unable to believe the luck I had in surviving the accident. I hoped the car driver felt guilty, as soon as he had sobered up sufficiently. I was a bit upset at the lack of flowers surrounding my bedside, but it could be excused if it had not been that long since I was run over.

The sooner I could get back up and start working on my exam project the better. I would not redo the year just because an idiot lost control over his vehicle.

Not happening in a million years.

The sound of footsteps made me look up. A nurse in a strange outfit was standing in the door, looking at me from over a stack of papers.

I stared at her with an intensity I seldom managed, and received a light scowl in reply from the brunette. She finished taking her notes and moved on from the doorframe with determined steps.

The slight echo of her steeps made its way back to me long after she vanished from sight.

My head was empty of thoughts. Trapped somewhere between denial and silly suspicion I slowly raised one hand, before forcing my eyes to glance at the offending limp. It was quickly hidden from view under my bedsheets again.

Really, suicide was not enough?

·

So I was back at the hospital with its 'glaring is caring' and professional attitude which left much to desired. How nice.

It was time to face my royal screw up. Time to accept I was not waking up any time soon. I was trapped here in my big hospital bed with clean linens in a world of glamorized murderers, and I had no way of escaping. Worse, they expected me to become one of them and fight people with the powers to destroy cities with a flick of their fingers. This world had a freaking Goddess waiting to come down from the moon.

It was just lovely all-around.

My five stages of grief was missing bargaining, but I was ready to meet life again head-on.

If I had to experience life in first-person from the perspective of a female Naruto Uzumaki, then I was going to have fun while doing it. I was going to mess with this dream hallucination until it broke into pieces. My stubbornness knew no end when awakened and I would hammer on the doors of reality until they opened.

And if so be it; that would be my Nindō.

I shuddered at the thought, and was eminently grateful nobody was around to see me facepalm repeatedly

·

My first challenge after the 'incident' came in the familiar form of the Hokage, who started out with a round of frowning and puffing on his pipe thoughtfully. I endured it in silence and used the time to study my fingers, which bore not even a mark from my adventure with explosives.

Naruto was able to survive a hole in his chest, which canon dictated barely missed his heart, so my expectations for later capabilities were set rather high.

"Naruto." I met the Hokage's gaze unblinking. The man looked lost and sighed before taking another strengthening puff on his pipe. "What do remember from before waking up here?"

My wide selection of possible lies made it hard to form the words needed to explain. I opened my mouth a couple of times, before deciding to do a version of the truth. "I ran out of paper." I was a child, and children would destroy white boring walls if they had the chance. "I wanted to practice writing more, but Chi-san…"

The old man searched his clothes and drew forth a piece of paper, with the kanji _baku,_ meaning 'explode', in its middle. It was a real explosive tag. "Have you been shown this before, Naruto?"

"I… can't remember." I tried to memorize its design while looking guilty. "It's… faint. I thought it was a dream."

"And what about this?" A piece of paper with the depiction of a sunlike seal was shown more slowly, like the man was unsure whether I should see it or not.

My eyes widened at the sign of the seal I clearly recognized resided on Naruto's stomach, before my mind began comparing my earlier efforts with the drawing. My memory of the seal had clearly been flawed, only remembering the basic shape with the spiral and the surrounding words sunbeam like appearance.

"Fire." My throat felt dry while I tried to remember what I had said last time we talked about dreams. "Fire and hate."

The Hokage was already putting the depiction away, and the small pause left me time to ponder the wisdom in telling anything about the night of the kyuubi's attack. I was already in danger of having mind readers ravage my mind, so the only question was whether more information would diminish or increase the chance.

He gave me a long hard stare. I could imagine he was searching for the proof of my human soul in my eyes and trying to dampen any fears about me being the kyuubi.

It was not the time to let ones lips twitch.

He finally gave up. "Have your nightmares been worsening, Naruto?"

I shook my head and started to response to the question, when I realized I had never called the old man by anything. It had always been Hokage or old man in my mind, but outside it I had never used any form of address which indicted I was speaking to him.

Probably not the best time to freeze up.

I received a comforting pat on my head, before he made me promise to tell him about any nightmares in the future. The subject changed to the matter of my future residence, since the apartment had taken damage and Chika… was unable to live with me any further.

It was more likely she had refused to have anything to do with me anymore.

I nodded when he explained he would find a new home for me, while I was in the hospital, so I just needed to wait patiently and not make any trouble in the meantime. If this was any indication of my future I would be known as the number one destructive ninja. I sighed as quietly as I could before charging up a puppy expression.

"Can I call you Jiji?"

I hate you Naruto Uzumaki and your cheerful endearing ways.

·

I hid under one of the countless stalls at Konoha's Marketplace, which enabled me to study my surrounding without the fear of being trampled upon. It proved barely more entertaining than lying in my bed at the hospital, and I had to suffer from the exhaustion of getting there, making me quite sure I was never getting back again by my own power.

Reserves of energy were awoken later in the afternoon when I spotted a familiar ninja. I was just beginning to get up, when I saw him duck slightly and start to move away from something my current position and viewpoint made me unable to see. I kept walked and spotted the approaching menace the ninja was trying to avoid.

The sight of man made me grin, and I hurried into action.

"Doggy-san" The white haired ninja stilled, slowly losing focus on the spandex wearing man with a bowl cut. "Found you!"

I grasped his leg with both hands and clutched it the best I could, stamping on one sandal covered foot while doing so in great pleasure.

"My eternal rival!" I smirked. The sharp high yell was the sound of victory over this fool of a ninja, who thought he could ignore me without consequences. My victory was short lived however since I was forced to release my prize merely seconds after gaining it. "And you found another most youthful friend!"

I blinked at the sudden appearance of Maito Gai's face and voiced my annoyance with a short commanding. "Down."

I was completely ignored.

"And what is the name of this most youthful girl!?" Gai was looking at Kakashi, not even noticing my pathetic tries to stump on his face.

"Set. Me. Down." I forced out through pressed lips. When he ignored me again to keep looking expectantly at Kakashi, I released a long sigh and turned my own gaze toward the copycat ninja, who strangely enough had not used his free mobility to run away.

The deadpan glare from a toddler seemed to amuse him if I interpreted his slightly raised brows correctly.

"I see she has the same hip attitude as you, my most youthful rival! I…"

"Greeny!" The power of a young child's voice was truly amazing when used with the highest tones possible. I glared at Kakashi, like this was his fault instead of my own. "Make him set me down!"

His chest moved like he snorted, but the indifferent gaze did not change.

"Dog-san, I will follow you to the end of the earth if you do stop this." Gai was beginning to say something again but the high pitch of my voice cut him off. "I will find your apartment, knock at your door every night, allowing you no time to rest, and find a way to paint you green." I threatened him. "And if not you, then your apartment."

I got a single blink in response, before my position was shifted and I was suddenly in the copycat's arms, held out at a safe distance usual only reserved for babies who had pooped their diapers.

I was not amused.

My emotional state was made clear by the act of folding my arms and narrowing my gaze at the copycat ninja. All it lacked was the words 'you suck', but given my apparent age I probably should limit myself in some ways.

Too bad I never actually had ever experienced the behavior of babies much, and since I had already exhibited strange behavior my hopeless acting was probably doing nothing to help.

"Why wear green?" I frowned at the Green Beast of Konoha. "Why not yellow or red?"

Kakashi was nodding beside me, like he agreed with my distaste. "Even children know it's wrong."

"Why wear green!?" The man in spandex boomed, an echo of my own question. "Green is the color of spring, it's the color of new fresh leaves, and so I show the world my youthfulness by donning it!"

"But youth means energy, and the purest first form of energy is from the sun." I made a vague gesture in the direction of the mentioned celestial body. "Every leaf and every flower blooms because of the shining sun, without it we would live in darkness, we…"

A slight murmur came from her left. "He actually managed to infect someone."

I hit the copycat ninja's arms with my small fists and gave a petulant scowl before continuing on. "Without it there would be no life, and so the very definition of youth and new life should be represented by yellow."

"You make a good point my most youthful friend, but it is not yellow with comes with spring!" The grown man in spandex gave a blinding smile. "The leaves of the trees are not yellow, but clear green, only becoming yellow in the fall when it's time to fade!"

I glanced to my left and saw Kakashi looked miserable, before returning the smile at the best of my abilities. "So you have taken this color both because of it connection to youthfulness and the village!" I concluded enthusiastically.

"Yes!" he boomed back. "What a smart youthful little friend you have, eternal rival!"

"It seems so." The indifferent gaze was not enough for my sadistic tendencies.

"And what is your name youthful little friend?!"

"Hh…" I had to remember my role in this charade. "Naruto!"

"Well met Naruto! I'm Konoha's sublime Green Beast of Prey…" Yes, and the master of bushy eyebrows. "Maito Gai!" His attention returned to the man to my left who continued to handle me like a shitty babe. "Now my eternal rival, I believe I was just about to challenge you…!"

"He promised to play with me!" I cut in, puppy eyes on full power. "Please Greeny Beast, let him play with me."

"Of course, if he has already promised so, I cannot interfere!" An overly serious nod followed. "I will return another time then, until then my eternal rival!" I was blinded by another smile and looked at the retreating figure in crowd with a slight frown, noticing for the first time how large an audience we had gained during the excitement.

I glanced at Kakashi, who looked sorely tempted to drop me and run way. "You owe me, you know." I said in a low voice. It was not the strangest thing I had said that day, so the idea of a toddler understanding the concept of one being indebted to another should not make him any more suspicious of me than he already was. "And you never visited, as you also know very well."

He was moving us away from the crowd now, most likely only using the streets instead of the roofs because he was still holding me at an arm's reach.

"Silence is not a nice way to answer another." I pouted dramatically in order to bait some sort of response from him.

It succeeded.

"The Hokage was right; you're a very peculiar child."

"And you're wallowing in self-pity, guilt and whatnot, not all of us are perfect." It spoke volumes he did not just drop me and walk away. "Are all ninja's psyche damaged in some way?"

He stopped to stare at me. "Are you sure you're a toddler?"

"Are you sure you're an…" I glanced up and down at him. "A teenager?"

One eyebrow was crooked at me. "Your level of perception is remarkable."

"Thank you." I dead panned. "You have no questions to my changed speech patterns or behavior towards your friend, Greeny?"

"I'm wondering whether the nicknames are a way of mocking us."

"And why would I ever mock fully independent people, who is in no need of the aid of others in order to satisfy basic needs and are not left to absolute boredom for hours on end." Since I was going full-blown 'adult trapped in toddler' I made the appropriate eyeroll. It was his own suggestion that I was a 'child prodigy', so it should justify me behavior, even if it was just a bit. "I don't even have my books anymore." I whined.

"So you like books?" The question was slightly surprising and I copied his expression by raising one brow.

"Yes. I'm pretty sure Chi-san never considered I would read half of them before turning 10, since very few of them were actually written with a child reader in mind."

He took a minute to just look at me, before emitting an 'Ah…' sound. "How is living with your Chi-san? Does she know you're out on your own?"

"Nope." I popped the word in reminisce of our first meeting. "In fact, I think she would be glad to never see me again. I had an accident you see." I fidgeted and tried to look convincingly guilty. "Jiji says he's going to find me a new home."

Awkward silence followed. The copycat ninja looked adorably bewildered, and yes I was allowed to use that word since he was younger than my real age.

It was so amusing I almost ruined it by snickering.

I turned sparkly eyes on him instead, that could be excused as being 'filled to the brink with tears'. We were going to have so much fun! The matters which I could tease him which were now in quite low supply, but I only had to wait until he was introduced to that series of his… better yet I could somehow arrange for him to fall across it early. Perhaps.

I was here to stay for an indeterminated amount of time, and by all gods, Kami or something, I was going to have fun.

* * *

_Author's note: Nothing is nicer than character development, even if it seems to go in the wrong direction. I'm experiencing some troubles at the moment with the line dividers of FFN, so I apologize for the inconvenience. _

_And thank you for your very positive reviews ^^ _


	6. Chapter 6: The great plan

**Chapter 6: The great plan **

The first obstacle in my master plan of getting Kakashi into po… the great Icha Icha series came in acquiring an issue with the appearance of a toddler. I was not even sure they had been written yet, so the fact that I stumbled upon one of them in the glass window of a store was a miracle in itself.

A sign hanging over the book display proclaimed they were all newly released, which meant I was as lucky as I could be.

Now it was time to move on to formulating a plan on how to acquire the object without arousing the full attention and suspicion of my watchers. Part of me was surprised they allowed me to move around, but then again, they had only reacted until now when I was in danger of a horrible death. Perhaps ninjas, Anbu included, really did view toddlers differently after having been exposed to a fair share of child genius.

They could also just be _that_ irresponsible. It was hard to tell.

It was going to be even harder to get the book. I only had to figure out how I was supposed to buy a book with no money and no talent in stealing, and it was wrecking my brain. I waddled on, conscious of my short stubby legs and less than agile movements. I may have been able to get by until then, but it was purely because people expected even less of a toddler than I delivered. Their movements unconsciously slowed down around me, at least to my eyes. My meeting with Kakashi was a prime example of why having my current appearance was as much a blessing as a curse, since he could have shook me off easily. If I did not stand close to females, like there was a familial connection between us, then people would begin to look worried after the blond child they saw passing. By overplaying the act of being lost and running at the first chance I got, I had evaded two attempts at 'returning' me to my parents.

I longed for the ability to use the rooftops as means of transport, but climbing up there would currently only end in me getting rescued the second before I became mash on the pavement. Again.

The sight of an oversized kanji for 'fire' made me pause in my musings.

It felt like I should remember it. Placed on a tower just below the wall of faces, it looked pretty important. It was probably because the Hokage of the village wandered around with the same sign on his hat, so it wasn't hard to imagine that I had found his office.

Weird having such a short distance between myself and the man, my mind still failed to classify properly.

I continued walking until I stumbled upon a building with the kanji for 'ninja' outside it. An empty swing hanging from a tree was beside it, connected to a lonely tree, and my mind pulled me through another Deja vu like feeling. It was promptly explained when a bunch of kids came out the building and started walking in my direction.

A brief moment of panic passed, before I forced myself to move towards them. A big smile stretched my lips, while my eyes jumped from one academy student to another in search of any familiar faces.

Was Iruka supposed to have graduated at this time?

"Aw…" One of the girls was cooing at the sight of the blond toddler on chubby legs, quickly gaining followers from other females around her. "Are you lost, little one" I blinked. "Look at her eyes, so big and blue!" I began stumbling backwards. "We have to find her parents." I tried to dodge their approaching claws. "Are those scars?" I failed and was scooped up by a brown-haired female with red paint on her cheeks.

Sort of like the dog ninja who was Naruto's friend.

My brain shut down at the proceeding pulling at cheeks and petting of hair. My hands trembled in the effort of keeping them in small fist instead of burrowing them inside the eyeholes of the girl holding me.

"What's your name, little one?"

I stared at her with wide eyes. "Ah…"

"You can tell big sister." A slight echo of the title reached all the way around.

Sister… My eyes widened further. I had forgotten a sibling bond, the whole fratricide mess. I searched franticly for any dark eyed dark-haired stoic sucker among the boys who were a good distance away.

Craptacular crapity crap.

The whole story line relied on the massacre, or at least the success of the good guys did. If Sasuke had not gotten a creepy hickey, he would never have been the student of pedophile snake guy and resurrected the former Hokages as zombies. The dominos would not fall correctly without the mass murder, my presence messed it up badly enough… I took a long deep breath and turned around to the female dog ninja again.

I was here to have fun, wasn't I?

"My name's Naruto." I replied enthusiastic. "I'm this many." Three fingers were showed together with a big grin. Who cared if I lied? Certainly not my lazy watchers.

A collective 'Aww' went through the mass of young females.

I was going to hate myself before this was over.

·

"Naruto, are you sure your mother meant that book?"

One smart groupie questioned my story. The details I had feed them with were a little fuzzy, but it had been something about birthdays, sad mothers and dead fathers. A last wish was involved in it somehow, and had managed to persuade the six to seven year olds to follow this far.

I gave a determined nod.

"… But that's for adults."

Yes, and they had marginal better chances at attaining the thing than I, which meant I had better luck at preventing the future ninja war than I had at getting my hands on the goodie before learning control of my limbs and stealth.

Still, the risks were worth it. No gain without pain, or something like that.

Since I was the main character of this charade I was entitled to a lot of pain already, so a bit more hardly mattered. Why had I even turned into Naruto Uzumaki? Hadn't my head said something along the lines of _"Replacing existing character, not possible"_? Just like it wanted me to specify what I meant by; "_Jinchuuriki_". Like nothing mattered but the gender, skills points and starting time selected… The epiphany hit me, and hit me hard.

I face palmed, which by my current audience was viewed as sadness.

Screw acting, I had just figured out I was going to replace main characters in each and every story. I wondered if I had chosen Star Wars, I would have become the virgin born Anakin, destined to ruin his own badass future image, or the heroic son, who kissed his own sister. It would probably depend upon where the story line started and if the expanded universe was taken into concern.

Since my knowledge of said 'expanded universe' only amounted to the name, it was not very likely to play a role.

"We can ask, can't we?" The girls glanced at each other above me, clearly touched by the sight of such a sad little child. "It won't hurt."

I stuck my lower lip out and made puppy eyes. "Thank you so much!"

A black-haired future kunoichi of Konoha split away from the group and walked into the shop with stubbornness visible in every inch of her body. The resulting; "It's for adults!" was expected. Nobody in their right mind would sell such material to children. The group pulled over to the side of the street and tried their best to cheer me up, while I tried my hardest to cry on command.

It was beginning to seem logical to train the skill. I was getting nowhere with dry eyes and exaggerated fake wailing.

This was pathetic in every sense of the word. "She'll never be happy again, now!" Come on, girls, take the bait. I'm practically begging you now.

The red painted girl was the first to give up. She took a deep breath, before turning to her gals with a resolute gaze. With quick commands she got minion one and two to go into the store to ask after a toilet, providing a distraction for minion three and herself to get the book out and the necessary money on the desk. It would have to be hidden, so it wouldn't be discovered at once, but still so visible it would be seen before the end of the day, where somebody clearly would have discovered a book missing from the display.

I had just convinced four child ninjas to steal for me. There should be an achievement for that. Called 'Flushing morals' or akin to that.

It didn't matter if money was left. It was not mine, so I was getting my book for free. I was leeching of others goodwill without feeling bad for the first time in my life. Who knew, perhaps I would be able to do the same outside my head next time?

Yeah, right.

"Naruto," I turned expectantly in the direction of the voice. My hands were already gleefully held forward to receive my treasure. "He wasn't fooled."

I blinked quickly, and glanced between the empty-handed painted female and the store, where I could see the store owner berating the two girls who had gone in to lure the man away.

Aw, damn.

·

There was a saying about how you should only ever rely on yourself. That and something about your shadow leaving you, and my overactive fantasy had already painted a quite cartoon like mental picture of a shadow with scissors trying desperately to cut itself free from me from just the thought about the quote.

Time to try and be an independent female toddler, nevermind the last part would make the whole thing pretty pointless and much less of a statement.

I waddled into the store, alarming the clerk with my presence by the smart bell system attached to the door. He turned around and blinked confused at the missing sight of a customer. A suspicious glint entered his eyes and he quickly searched his surrounding, like he was expecting to be assassinated or finding a thief hiding in a corner.

Smart of a civilian, but it was a pretty futile gesture since he would be powerless against any kind a respectable ninja.

It took less than five seconds for him to spot me, not merely enough to hide among the bookcases. He barked at my back. "This store's not for kids, get out little girl." I guessed he was not very good generally with kiddies or the stunt with the girls had just pissed him so off, so he was still dealing with the aftermath.

I turned around with the most innocent expression I could managed, big eyes blinking up at him and lower lip sticking out.

He merely looked annoyed.

Even if it was directed towards me, I quite liked the grumpy attitude. He was a no nonsense man, and this world desperately needed some rational people around. I had begun on a real smile, when his expression suddenly changed. His eyes flashed darkly, sudden realization transforming his lined face to look much older.

My brows rose. "Something wr…?"

"Get out!" The shout made me flinch, my hands unconsciously moving into a defensive stance. "You're the demon brat, right?! With the scars and all, so get out filthy thing!"

So the villagers already knew of me? My eyes widened. The lack of reaction probably only stemmed from the fact nobody expected me to walk around. I should be somewhere in someone's care or… Did people know I was in the hospital… did they know I had been living with Chika? Had the woman spreading whatever information she had gathered on me while I was in her care, simply because I had creeped her out?

My eyesight turned blurry, while the pressure of my own bustling thoughts kept it frozen.

This was not meant to happen.

I registered movement near me, and tried to escape the approaching full-grown hand, which grasped me by the collar of my t-shirt and lifted me off the ground. A half formed growl whistled though my teeth before I was sent flying through the air.

Some part of me recognized the feeling of being slammed against the ground.

"And stay out, demon," Pieced through my confusion.

People had turned around in the street, staring at the scene with wide eyes. There was a dimming realization in the air, the sense of truth simmering under the surface which held them back from interfering. No condemning words were shouted at the clerk, who was still standing in the store's door with rage visible in every fiber of his being.

I lifted a single hand, trailing a wound on my cheek caused by the hash meeting with the road. _Achievements gained: "Whack to the back"… _

I clenched my fists, meeting his gaze with my own boiling anger nearing the surface and refusing to back down even if he was superior to me in every physical aspect. I could feel a well-known warmth wait under my skin, ready to respond to my increasingly emotional state. My mind whirled through every possible course of action, and it stopped within the realm of immediately retaliation.

I would not be cowed by an oaf, who was capable of hurting a young child like that.

I rose on unsteady legs and started walking forward, every step causing me to gain momentum. He barely even blinked and only raised a hand, readying himself to throw me even farther this time. I sneered and forced warmth to move through my legs, ignoring I had never really experimented enough for that to be safe.

It was almost too fast for me to raise a fist and fill it with the same warmth. Just a tickle of power in the grand scheme of things, since I very well knew about Naruto's overwhelming chakra storage and prowess.

This man was learning what happened when you hurt kids. If the villagers started hating me because of that, fine, let them. At least they would have a valid reason now.

My fist connected with his chest and the resulting impact forced us apart again. I met the ground again and lost my breath as my body skid over the street like a ragdoll, which had been tossed away. The warmth under my skin was burning too rapidly while white tinted the edge of my vision. The familiar color made my body tense up and I forced myself to sit up in order to face the consequences of my rash action.

Anger was still shimmering beneath my skin, beating in step with my heart and the fading rhythm of pulsing chakra. Exhaustion was starting to set in, but the lack of pain indicated I had gotten out of this without any hospital prolonging injuries.

My gaze found the clerk the same moment the rest of the world caught up.

Hands pulled me up from behind, making it impossible to see who was behind them. They were steady, indicating the owner was currently not suffering from the strain of emotions visible in the civilians' faces around me.

It was a ninja then.

I focused on the man I had felled again, before I was taking away. Time seemed to move slowly, because I got a good view of his pale face and unbloodied chest, proof I either possessed the perfect amount of needed self-control or was weaker than I thought.

I resisted the urge to grin manically. It would be a shame to give people the wrong impression of me, after all.

·

The end destination was predictable. I was carried into the Hokage tower, more precisely the office of the current Hokage, my very own Jiji.

Blood was still rushing in my ears, so I barely noted the quick report from the Anbu who had dragged me halfway across town. The corners of my lips kept twitching, unable to decide on the correct expression. I ended up staring at the elderly man with whatever remained of my anger sizzling on my tongue. It left a bitter aftertaste, like bile pilling up.

I was almost surprised to find myself shaking as I was sat down in a chair at the Hokage's desk. It seemed I had been angrier than I thought.

The old man took seat in his big chair opposite mine, his desk standing as a barrier between us. He looked at me for a minute, before sighing. "Naruto, what am I going to do with you?"

I looked down at my fist in favor of meeting his unflinching gaze.

"Leaving the hospital without telling any personnel…" He knew perfectly where I was the entire time with his Anbu following me. "Running around the entire city and causing trouble…" I frowned slightly at that, taking offence since I could think of a hundred better ways to have stirred up troubled if I had wanted. "And lastly..." Another sigh. "Why did you attack him, Naruto?"

"He hurt a kid," flew out before I had time to think. Anger always had the tendency to ruin my judgement. "He proved himself inadequate…" of being called a human being. "…when he decided to take his anger out on child."

The Hokage leaned slightly forward, resting the tips of his fingers against his chin. "How do you view yourself, Naruto?"

"I…" I blinked. What was the correct response to that? "From the way others been acting around me, it's clear someone of my age should not be capable of independent thoughts and only supposed to react to the world with nativity like that of a newborn chick which barely can comprehend which way is up and which is down. I suppose I see apparent age and mental age as two different things, since there in my case seems to an abyss between them."

The Hokage closed his eyes. "I see. Hatake was right." A moment of silence passed by. "When did you decide to act rather than show your true self?"

"I…" My lips twitched. "Can't remember. I think I tried to fit into Chi-san expectations."

He simply nodded, eyes still closed.

I raised a single brow, trying not to let my incredulity become too apparent. The old man was actually buying the rubbish about being a child prodigy trying to fit in the normal role of a child. Unless mind readers were waiting in the corners of the office, it at least seemed to be the case so far.

"So you decided to attack him based on how he should treat you, which oppose how others have been acting around you?"

"Adults are meant to keep children safe, so yes." It was either fast retribution, where he still had the opportunity to remember his deeds and thereby learn by his mistakes, or the long way around. My patience had been wearing thin, so the thought of years of careful planning to ruin him financially, emotionally and physical had been exhausting in itself.

Even if it that had nothing on the current condition of my body. I tried to wiggle my toes, and almost lost my breath.

"Naruto, do you remember telling me you wanted to be a ninja." I nodded to indicate I was listening. "A ninja's most important duty is to protect the village. He never fights just for his own sake. He never avenges, but is able to take the scorn of those who know less and protect them in silence. Moving and acting as one, that's our strength. It gives us the strength to go further than we would have done on our own, to keep pushing ourselves even when all seems hopeless. That's the Will of Fire."

Another nod. "I'll remember that."

"And what will you do the next time someone from the village treats you unkindly?"

I would find a way to punish him or her undetected. "I'll not retaliate unless it proves a danger to my own life." … And continued wellbeing, which made it possible for me to classify any spiteful act as justification for revenge.

"Good." He gave a faint smile, like I had done something worthy of feeling pride over. It made me frown slightly. "Now on to less serious matters. It'll soon be your birthday, but I think such dreary matters and solemn promises warrant something in return."

I smiled. He knew how to arouse curiosity, the old fox.

He opened a drawer in the desks and started pouring out scrolls. "You'll only get these if you promise to use them responsible." They were a great deal larger than I had imagined. The scribbles on them so large, I wouldn't have any problem writing them with my current ability. "Now the reason you landed yourself in the hospital comes from the fact you made a seal on accident, an exploding seal to be exact. It is part of a ninja art called Fūinjutsu, which it seems you're natural proficient in. This art can be very dangerous in the hand of an inexperienced, so playing around is not allowed, Naruto." A pause. "Do you have any questions?"

I bit hard down on my lips to stop myself from grinning; barely concentrating on the different materials he had placed on his desk in order to get to the scrolls. "I understand. Fūinjutsu is the ninja art of sealing. It's capable of making explosions with the right inscriptions on a scroll, which should never be experimented with without supervision." I blinked and faced his gaze. "What do they do?"

He unrolled one scroll, his arms not even long enough the show its entire length. "These are mainly used to seal and unseal objects. A container to store your belongings in, you could say."

"Jiji, is there something in them?"

He laid the scroll out on the table in my reach. There was a single picture amidst the walls of writing, it seemed out of place. "Why don't you try to unseal it and see?"

I reached out and lingered hesitantly on the edge of the paper. My body felt heavy, the strain of using chakra evident every time I moved. Part of me wondered if this was a test, both one of ability but also of character. Would I reach out with greedy hands or contemplate what I was doing? I searched his gaze and found no answers, so I proceeded in my cause.

The contact between paper and skin made me shiver. The warmth of chakra blazed wildly under my skin, begging to come out and be used. It was almost enough to make me activate the seal unconsciously.

I withdrew my hand, and looked at the Hokage. "Can you show me how it's done?"

He was clearly using slow movement as he made a simple hand seal and activated the storage seal. One of my fingers was still connected to the paper, and I felt the flow of contained heat in the paper change direction. It was like a switch. I could already see how to turn it off and on.

It was the weirdest thing I ever experienced, on par with the time I pulled two all-nighters and became convinced I gained telekinetic powers. Stupid cat, sneakily pretending to be a chips bag.

A stack of papers were produced from the scroll in a shower of dust and it became somewhat apparent what the limits of the Hokage's generosity were at my current age. I faintly smiled and let my gaze glide back to the drawer content which was still on the table, halfway remembering the Hokage was supposed to be a pervert.

It couldn't be… I was definitively seeing porn among those things. Not the Icha Icha series though.

I turned my attention back at the matter at hand, and stared at the unsealed stack of papers. It was time to test my theory about the switch while in supervision, since I had kind of promised to only practice in front of others. There were only benefits to be seen as trustworthy.

I nudged the pathways of heat with my own and returned them to their former appearance.

There was a heartbeat, where nothing happen before it returned to its former state. Another nudge and the paper were released again. I took it a step further and tried to seal the content with the shown hand seal, but it did nothing. Annoyed I tried again, and searched for any reaction to the hand seal performed within my pathways.

Nothing.

I took a shaky breath, trying to push any distracting thoughts away which threatened to swallow me. I made the hand seal again and forced the same kind of reaction in my pathways as I have felt when I have touched the paper.

When the dust cleared, the paper stack was gone.

"I think I got it."

"And you were not supposed to…?"

"Try to draw seals without supervision and use them in any illegal or harmful way." My mind was not fully on the subject, racing ahead and trying to figure out why the hand seal had not worked automatically. Were you meant to twitch the pathways yourself, or did my origin give me a handicap regarding the matter?

How nice of my brain to limit my potential to use the magic of this world.

The Hokage patted my head, and I found myself closing my eyes, enjoying the gentle touch compared to the hell I had been through earlier. I wasn't going back to that shop any time in the near future. It would be preferable if I didn't see the academy any time soon either since my cheeks were still stinging from the touchy fingers of small girls.

"Now can you wait a few minutes without moving from that chair, Naruto, before we go back to the hospital?"

I gave a slight nod, eyes still closed.

It did not take long for the sound of a closing door to reach me, and opened my eyes with a grin at the prize on the table, almost hidden by the open storage seal. He had giving me storage seals and practically showed me how to work them. There was no way I was leaving that office without something to show for my efforts. This exhausted body of mine would just have to bear the stress.

You should have known better old man, than tempting me.

·

I like to say stalking paid off, but I actually only knew the correct address because I stumbled upon the master of youth: Matoi Gai. He was more than happy to tell me where my playmate lived, and the realization that the guy actually knew that was more than enough to cause me a headache. How did Kakashi get by in a day without getting challenged? Did the Green Beast have a protocol forbidden him from such 'unhanded means' as surprising his so called eternal rival in his own apartment.

Luckily this world didn't run on logic, because it would have run out a long time ago.

It actually took a surprisingly short amount of time for the copycat ninja to answer the door, bearing in mind my threats of late-night knocking and his future habits of 'never being on time'.

I happily observed him prod the thick magazine on his threshold with one foot for a moment, before he turned his gaze directly at me. "Naruto, what are you doing?" I sighed, already having half expected this to happen. He was Jōnin, I would have been severely disappointed if he hadn't discovered the brat hiding down his hallway.

I stepped forth with raised hands and an overly large grin. "I come bearing gifts!" Even if it was not the series I originally had in mind.

He watched my approach, looking delightfully perturbed. It was quite deserved, really, after all the efforts I put into getting the thing on his threshold.

It was absolutely adorable, the expression and the way he took a step away, without slamming the door rudely in my face, like it would keep me away. It made every bit of trouble I had gone through to acquire this treasure, which was currently still lying on his threshold, worth it. If I could, I would have adopted him, the poor grieving soul. Nevermind I was not much older than him and had never had the responsibility for another human's wellbeing.

My current body's biological parents had practically adopted him by some fan theories, so he was already mine in some sort way. If they could, then I could... Wait.

Sparkly eyes turned on him.

If my biological parents 'practically adopted' him, then we were 'practically' siblings. "Dog-san, I have decided you from now and forever will be my brother." I jumped excitedly up and down, something which was not shared by the other side in the conversation. "Do you like my gift, Nii-san?!"

He cast another quick glance at it, like the first look had not been enough to confirm what is was. "Why… where did you get it?"

"The shop owner explained it was something every young male ought to have." I nodded seriously, trying to force him to pick the thing up with the power of my mind. Come on, Kakashi, make big sister proud, my thoughts screamed. "I can't exactly remember where the shop is located, but I'm sure you'll be able to find it yourself, if you want more."

"Just take it back." He went still for a moment before quickly fetching the magazine himself with wide eyes. "On the other side, you went through all the troubles of finding it, so I will take it off your hands, Naruto. Promise me you'll never visit that shop again."

I blinked owlish, leaning my head to one side. "I can't even remember where it was, why would I go back?"

There was slight panic in his eyes now. "Just promise me never to go into suspicious places or follow suspicious people. Again. Can you promise me that?"

I grinned victoriously. "Can I call you Nii-san then?"

"Yes, yes you can."

"Then you have my promise, Nii-san." Oh, Kakashi, give the devil a finger and he'll… "Now your first act as my newly appointed brother will be to appreciate my gift and read it!"

I blinked, slightly stunned when the door closed in my face.

* * *

_Author's note: And the explanation for her current body is here. It will hopefully clarify what happened in chapter 1 to your satisfaction. _


	7. Chapter 7: Failed celebrations

**Chapter 7: Failed celebrations **

The week before October the 10th came about was unusual.

I jumped from the window in my room at the hospital and tried to pull off a three point landing, which left me with a broken right hand. I suspected Anbu had let me, because they wanted to teach me about velocity and the limitations of my very fragile body. After working myself up to the challenge of becoming ambidextrous, I rediscovered my own forgotten regeneration rate, so the lesson was mostly ineffective.

The third day after the accident was the day I teared of the cast and repeated the same action, leading to a dislocated ankle. It proved it was alright to sometimes ignore the definition of insanity, and the repetition of disastrous actions could lead to improvement.

The unusual part was not really the self-caused damage and the following recovery time, but my visitor.

It was a dark and stormy night, or so I would like to say. Another cliché would be to say 'like a thief in the night', but then again, isn't that demeaning when the person in question is a ninja? If calling them murderers is degrading, then thief must be a least be on the no-list. Funny things thoughts, and how they like to wander, when all I really wanted to say, were I woke because my chakra pathways began to work up. It was the first time I noticed my own magic system was able to respond to the presence of others, and I almost missed the sound of the door closing.

The next day I found several books on the table by my bed. Some history, botanic, obscure legends and a single dictionary, none of it really meant for a child.

The lists of possible candidates were short enough for me to immediately pinpoint the gift giver.

What a really weird coincidence that it was my birthday just the same day.

·

"I'm going out for today. Back before it gets dark." I yelled at the nearest team of nurses, while racing toward the exit.

They only scowled lightly in my direction, a single one of them looking at me blankly like she either had not heard rumors of my supposed demonhood or was confused about why I told them. It had become a habit to tell the nearest grown up where I was heading, so the Hokage would stop nagging me about safety and other things like that. Safety should not be a concern with my watchers, and I had tried to point it out without spilling I knew about the fox.

I had not succeeded very well.

My first destination was Kakashi's apartment, where I hopefully would be able to catch him. I was bringing a supply writing tools and paper in a bag, if he was not there or refused to open the door. The last thing seemed to be the biggest obstacle in my plan of getting closer to the copy-nin, as his response to his new honorary status as brother had been to avoid me even more. If that was even possible with the status of our relationship before that. I was not sure if he viewed me as my own annoying little entity or if his guilt still went into overdrive every time he looked at me.

It was slow progress for an awful lot of effort, but I had nothing better to do really.

I fought my way up the stairs in his apartment complex and stayed by his door for about half an hour, where I regularly knocked just in case he was home. When he still remained absent after the time had run out, I sat down on the floor and began writing the thank-you note I had been constructing in my mind since I had laid eyes on his presents.

It was a bit long, and quickly went off track when I got the brilliant idea that being penpals would solve the problem with his guilt overdrive at the mere sight of me.

I may also have suggested he extended his wardrobe in regards to his masks, since it bore the same color of his headband which made them blend horrible. I was no fashionista or that interested in fashion in generally, but the lack of variety was beginning to get boring. I was in the hospital and almost universally disliked, and I seemed to have more clothes than him somehow. Courtesy of the Hokage no doubt.

I finished the letter sized thing and frowned at bit at its content. It was the best I could come up with on short notice, and at least it was not a generic thank-you letter, so I had that. Still most of it sounded pretty awkward, and it reminded me why most of those I knew called me socially inept.

Well, as a person who had never understood loneliness other than as a concept used frequently when humans complained about their lot in life, I could honestly say the implications had never really bothered me beyond the point that I had failed at something.

I dipped a finger in ink and signed the letter-note-something with a smiley made of fingerprints before forcing it into the door's letter slit, wondering about the possibility of getting a bomb or explosive tag inside the apartment through the same thing. I had a hard time understanding why no one in this universe had simply flooded a village with the things and watched the ensuring fireworks. It was a crude method, but it would work in theory. Especially if you involved the storage capabilities of some seals.

For Kami or something's sake, with just a little knowledge about Fūinjutsu and a lot of time and money for ink and paper, you could hypothetical make some pretty powerful bombs.

This world was lucky I was not inclined to fuck it over big time, or a good chunk of the village and surrounding land would be missing.

I got up from the floor and walked out into clear sunshine once again. It was in the middle of autumn, but in spite of that the temperature was still pretty high and the sun was shining from a clear sky. The only real indication of the season was the colored leaves of the trees, which admittedly had always been the reason I had loved this time at year.

They were so pretty!

My focus shifted from the beautiful sight of the dying leaves to my more direct surroundings. I did not possess the necessary instincts to maneuver around in the streets without using my eyes and not be being pushed about by other people. My small size made it possible for me to easily ignore the glares of the muggles, so I was enjoying some sort of benefit from my age.

I was trying not to memorize any faces and writing mental lists of future victims. It was not like they were worth it anyway.

My ears caught the hushed whispers of two women discussing how it would better if I better if I just 'disappeared', while I jumped over the outstretched foot of a man who was quite oblivious in his deliberate attempt of tripping me. Someone was hissing "Demon", and I could feel my eyes twitch as a result.

Damn muggles made it hard to ignore them.

·

I came across an entrance to a rather large bit of land separated from the rest of the village. The little idiotic painted fan on it made it clear who was living there.

The twitchiness of my eyes increased as I walked up to it.

Here was the reason for most of my problems in the coming years, the Uchiha, the proud and arrogant clan with their very own 'Curse of Hatred'. If I had one wish, it was for anyone capable of developing or already carrying the Sharingan to disappear from this universe. Without Tobi and Madara there would be no convoluted plot involving the moon and dooming every human on the planet to die. Without Itachi and Sasuke there would be no fratricide mess, stupid suicide plans and angst.

Best of all, the bitch of a rabbit woman would be stuck in the moon for all eternity. Sure it was ruining the whole plot, but who wanted to deal with all the backstabbing between villains leading to that point?

I messaged my temples and tried to think logically about my options.

The massacre was the first event I would be able to influence which would have drastic consequences, but the question was whether I even wanted to. It was an overblown way to respond to a coup d'état, but I could understand Danzō's motivation to do so to some degree. The Sharingan was seriously dangerous in the hands of the wrong person, but considering what other freaks of nature that was walking around, it really did not warrant killing all the children in order to deal with the rebellious adults of the clan.

Messy, that was the best word to describe the whole situation, and it was giving me a headache.

It was not like I did not have an absurd amount of time to think it through and decide on a course of action, so I decided to move on before anyone got suspicious about the long delay outside the Uchiha compound.

Several drunks had begun to leak into the street, which made it a bit harder to get around without having to resort to violence. Anbu was still leaving me to deal with my own problems, so when one of the drunk's grabbed my collar I had to fight to freedom on my own. I was a tiny bit grateful for the lack of interruptions since it was a perfect opportunity to practice my skill of biting and growling like a savage.

What a gift to be given on your own supposed birthday.

I did not go back.

The option of leaving the streets and walking back to the hospital was unappealing, both because the list of activities I could do there were quite limited, even with my new books, and because it would mean the muggles were winning. I would not give them the satisfaction of that. If I wanted to be outside I would stay outside and do whatever I wanted. Even if I had to bite a hundred people before they grasped it, I would do so and developed a taste for their blood in the progress.

I was no emotional fragile child. Those glares of theirs would not affect me any more than the buzzing sound of annoying mosquitoes.

With renewed determination I continued walking the streets, simply to show my spite of the common people and their superstitions.

·

Hours, it had been hours, and my stubbornness was beginning to decline again to a manageable level.

The date was bothering me more than I liked. For this world it represented a day of tragedy, but for me it was simply another lie, something else I had to remember in every conversation in order not the break the masquerade.

It was getting tiresome to pretend, and even more so to stop myself from taking my temper out on the nearby glaring muggles.

Feeling a bit depressed I left the streets and began wandering aimless into the forest. Since it was the day it was, I was guaranteed to have somebody watching over me if I ran into something. It did not guarantee they would help me, but I at least had somebody to bring the body back.

I was practically oozing positiveness.

When I came across a river I decided to follow it, since it would be harder to get lost with a big stream of water by your side as guide. It was quite peacefully really. Lot of quiet time, if you discounted the bird song and rustling of dying leaves. Mountains were visible in the distance and everything, so all it really needed was some pretty flowers and it was good to go.

It would have made for quite an attraction somewhere in my home world.

I stopped when I came across three poles, my feet seemly stuck to the ground.

Slowly I turned to the right with increasing dizziness; my breath coming out in small huffs like I had ran a marathon. It almost seemed impossible, theoretical having the same chance to happen as the whole lotto winning thing, but I had still done it. My gaze zoomed in on a lone figure, standing with his back to me and staring down on a tombstone like monument.

I had found the Memorial Stone.

My gaze shifted back to the single man standing by the monument. One I knew would keep standing there years for now, never forgetting those who had left him behind in the world of the living in order to go the afterlife. He was mourning, mourning a dead teacher and teammates.

One which did not deserve so.

I clenched my fists, air hissing out through my teeth. This was a moment of privacy. I was not supposed to spoil the peace here. He was allowed to mourn the memory of the friend he had lost, even if the same friend ran around like a puppet on strings and planned the end of this world.

I started walking, faintly aware of shaking while I neared the stone honoring the dead.

Kakashi did not look up.

The silence was unbroken. I joined him in staring at the names of people long gone by. It was being respectful, it was what I had always lived by; trying to be the best possible person at the given time and place. I had never successfully lived up to that ideology, I had not even truly tried while living here. It had been like one long respite from reality and the stress of never-ending exams and trying to live up to the expectations of others.

I sat down on the ground and curled up.

It was as good a place as any to wait for the day to end.

* * *

_Author's note: Some days it's not worth getting out of bed. She wants to have fun, but her plans are rarely that successful as have been demonstrated before. Introspection is not that funny to write or read, but her age is still pretty limiting and a sudden time skip would mean a lot of development cut short. _


	8. Chapter 8: Shackles and cages

**Chapter 8: Shackles and cages **

The same scenery; white ceilings, green walls and the deafening odor of cleaning agents. I woke up with the exact same view as the day before, the same I would wake up to the day after.

Time went by almost unnoticed, since I was always repeating the motions of what had come before in some form. I woke to a white ceiling and fell asleep to the distant sound clicking heels and voices of real people. Reaching for something, anything within reach, I would spend each day performing an almost mindless activity.

Part of me recognized the incoming depression, and every moment awake was spent fighting it, but when the morning light spilled in through the windows nothing could distract me from the feeling of emptiness. The schedule was already clear; explore town, stare at scrolls, take notes and plaster whatever space left on my walls with them.

I figured the Hokage had given up on the delusion of getting me another caretaker, or he just felt it would be a waste when my frequent injuries would bring me back here again and again.

·

I never knew sharing quiet time with another being melancholic was so effective, if you ignored the time before the effect was felt.

"I still don't see why I can't use my own two feet." I forced out through clenched teeth. The blindfold covering my eyes was itching and left my imagination in overdrive without sight to glue me in on my surroundings.

There was a snort to my left. "You should try to enjoy the benefits of your age. In a couple of years nobody will be willing to carry you around… "

"And I will be happy." I finished. A small smile betrayed me, and I heard the snorting sound again. Part of me was quite happy with the accomplishment of finally having made the man comfortable enough to show some sort of emotion other than awkwardness and confusion in my presence. The other part was still loudly protesting against this treatment.

The copy-nin had appeared early the same morning, shocking me both with his willingness to stay near me and his initiative in spending time with me. It was one of the last days of October and I had spent the day before raiding the doctors' offices with one of my storage scrolls, which had provided me with another book on anatomy and several crumpled papers with medical notes from trashcans.

My own sense of personal hygiene prohibited me from rummaging the waste of gloves, empty tubes, lines and other such things, but I succeed in finding several pills and samples of herbs, which made me yet again question the level of technology of this world.

Everything was currently contained safely in a scroll back at my room in the hospital, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my body and no means of self-defense.

The daily issue with the glaring muggles was making me slightly paranoid.

I wetted my lips with the tip of my tongue and started talking again, in an attempt to distract me from my current state of blindness and therefore increased wariness. "Seriously, the least you could do is telling me where we're going." I felt strong wind push my hair back and I tried to swallow a gasp at the realization, that we were probably moving faster than should be humanly possible. Any thought of opening my mouth again left me, since it would most likely lead to me swallowing a bug.

A sudden though raced through my head and I bit down on the arm holding me, with a faint shrill scream hissing out through my lips.

I was promptly sat down and I tore off the blindfold, staring wildly at the familiar masked face before me. My mouth opened and closed, trying to figure out whether to demand he confirmed his identity or simply scream for help.

The Henge was a basic technique, which even academy students knew, and I had no idea how to recognize it being used.

The possible imposters eyes were wide, either reflecting panic from being found out or from rousing this sudden and unexpected reaction. "Naruto," There was a hint of concern, but was the emotion false? Who was this man before me? "Breathe."

I gasped for air when the command registered, noticing my lightheadedness for the first time.

We were on a roof, the direction unknown but still in Konoha. There would be ninjas below us, perhaps others moving around on the roofs. I was still within perimeters of safety, but it could change quickly. This man could cut my throat quicker than I could yell for help.

The conclusion heightened my continued hyperventilating.

"Identity." Confusion crossed his face. "Confirm your identity… what alternative colors did I suggest to Maito Gai for his outfit?"

His eyebrows rose questioningly, but he answered without delay. "Red and yellow."

"Why?" I whispered urgently.

"Naruto, what's wrong?"

"Why?" I prompted again, my gaze not leaving his for a second.

"The sun, energy and new life." He replied drily. "But you never did explain the red choice. So, can you explain to me now, why you suddenly need proof of my who I am?"

"Tell me where we're going first."

He gazed at me with incredulity before closing his eyes with a sigh. "You're quite the sneaky child."

The meaning of those words left me indignant. "I was not acting. You could have been anyone, coming in and wanting me to follow without questions. Not to mention, you were the one who made me solemnly swear never to follow suspicious people, remember that?"

The facepalm worthy accusation did not gain more reaction than one long stare.

"I'm not sorry for being cautious." I grumbled while crossing my arms. "Isn't that an important aspect for a ninja? Even now I have to take into consideration that you could have that information from spying…"

A large hand was placed on my head, and I pouted at him as he continued to pat my hair with monotonous movements.

"See, you're not telling me I'm wrong."

"No," There was the eye-smile. "I'm happy you listen to your elders, Naruto."

I sneered before mumbling. "I'll find a way to hurt you, just wait and see. I'll have vengeance for people messing with my hair, and when the day comes, you'll all regret your actions but to no avail, since no forgiveness will be given!"

Kakashi chuckled in response, and I was lifted again under heavy verbal protest from my side. It was too dangerous to fight my way to freedom with the speed we were moving at. One heart-hammering journey later we were standing at an open space with swings, seesaws and a single slide. It was empty since it was still early, but it was easy to imagine how crowded it would be in a few hours.

A playground, he took me to a playground.

"Do you hate me?" I whimpered. "Is this some sort of punishment for something I've done in a former life? Why did you think this was a good idea?"

He calmly listened to my whining with unchanged expression.

"I know who'll come here soon." My voice dropped dramatically. "And do you know what they do to someone like me? They. Will. Touch. Me. Cheeks, hair, it doesn't matter! Every part of your body being sullied by touchy fingers…" I was cringing from my own words, the innuendo too much even for myself. "Don't you dare leave me to this!"

"They're children, like you."

"I know which _children_ come here! They're older than me, so how am I supposed to play with them, hm, oh grand schemer?" My mocking tone barely concealed the underlying horror. "You did not think this through, did you?"

His eyes were shining, like this was amusing to him. "I did not think you would do well with those of your own age. Call it a compromise. Spending time with other _children _will do you good."

"No-no-no, this is only to satisfy your own twisted sense of humor." I shook a finger at him. "Or it's you getting revenge for the gift, which you clearly did not like, _big brother._"

I received a hint of a smile, the skin around his eyes crinkling slightly. "You need to learn how to interact with them in time if you want to be a ninja. Those who don't care for their comrades are lower than…" He trailed off, like he was unsure if he wanted to go on.

Go on, you were not teaching me any new words, Kakashi. "Trash," I finished annoyed. "I know how to interact with others, but that does not mean I enjoy it. Seriously, what made you think this was a good idea?"

He lifted a single eyebrow, like he was saying; _what do you think_?

"So is this just a pit stop for you, or are you going to stay here and watch me stumble about and learning the proper way to communicate with my future so called comrades?" I recomposed myself into a rigid stance, somewhat happy he was crouching so we were on eye level. "If they have any kind of parental supervising then this will be largely unproductive."

The man resorted to simply shaking his head.

"You know I'm right. No matter how good your intentions were bringing me here, it will never change how people view me in generally and consequently their children in turn." A slight frown marred my features. "I know how normal family dynamics works. I have eyes, and there are lots of open windows around town."

"You go around spying." It was more a statement than a question, but I still replied with a stiff little nod.

"Off course." It was obviously the most logical option for anyone in my position.

He mumbled something, and I perked up at the sound of the words 'sensei' and 'wrong'. The poor boy was clearly lost, and had no idea in how he was going to handle me.

Perhaps I had been a little too hard on him?

"So, now we have that little detail made perfectly clear, shall we go somewhere else?" I cast a dark look at the grey swings, trying not to imagine how they were shaking in slight terror of the apprehension of the small devils that would later arrive and misuse them. "What do you do in your spare time, Nii-san?"

The silence stretched out for an uncomfortable long while.

"You can't seriously mean all you do is staring at a memorial?" I said slowly, doubt clear in every word, which made me feel pretty accomplished as an actor. "Please tell me you know how to relax and enjoy life?"

It was pretty incrimination he kept being quiet.

"That's not healthy." But then again, I had already known about his lack of current hobbies. The only difference was that now he knew I knew. Ah, convoluted situation, you never fail to amuse me.

"And jumping repeatedly from second floor is?"

The response provoked a grin. "You're talking back to a toddler; I think both of us know who's winning this argument."

"I'm beginning to wonder if you ever were a toddler," came the tart reply. "And since we're already off topic, no I'm not going to get pink masks nor will I wear anything flower patterned."

"Well, you're a buzzkill. Also, that's showing some serious fear of one small fragile little girl." I quipped, taking a deep breath and running a hand through my hair in an attempt to calm the rest of my remaining nerves from the earlier excitement. "Can't we just agree this was a bad idea, even if the intentions behind it were excellent, and actually do something enjoyable? _Please?_"

I leaned his head owlish to one side. "And what do you consider enjoyable, Naruto?"

My mouth popped open in a small 'o'. "That's actually a good question." I blinked rapidly. "I've heard watching television is fun. Same with going to restaurants, but for some reason hiking isn't popular. Ninjas seem to find sparring to be a pleasant pastime, but I guess you already know that…" I trailed off. "I'm beginning to see why you thought the playground was a good idea for other reasons than just socialization. What do people actually do for fun?"

I stared wide eyed at him, and he gave me a blank look in return.

What wouldn't I give to be in the world of the internet?

·

Needless to say, we did not come with any good activities to pass time. It was not for lack of trying, but my age and this world technology level kept getting in the way.

My quests for 'fun activities to do in your spare time with others' began a month before the Hyūga incident. I woke on the 28th December with the feeling that I had forgotten something, a feeling which was confirmed just a short time thereafter. I had not run past any gossiping nurses that morning, so the talk had not reached my ears before a muggle in the streets murmured something in the edge of my hearing range.

Something about Hyūga Hinata, the kidnapping which was the catalyst causing an innocent man to die, a child to lose his father and a girl to lose any confidence in herself. It was a growing tragedy, and the person who stopped it from growing worse was not there to deal with it. Would never get there to fix what was mendable and pick up the pieces of two broken individuals.

I stilled the moment the realization sat in, ignoring like always the glares coming my way from those who recognized a tuft of blond hair and whisker marks hidden under scarf and hood.

It was the moment I realized how little the world mattered.

This universe had a predetermined chain of events, and I could try to change that all I could without getting any kind of results. My brain would be unable to calculate different paths, work out how the world would go on and what the consequences would be.

But that didn't matter.

Because this was not reality. It was nothing but a fleeting moment of a dream, forgotten as soon as my eyes opened again. I looked at a passing family and saw nothing but the walls of the building behind them. Then I passed that and viewed the world as it was, desolate and empty except random threads of thoughts which, woven together, made up the world I was looking at and viewing through foreign eyes.

My mission was to have fun, because nothing else mattered.

·

The woman was too busy looking at papers to notice the toddler walking up to her. I was not sure if I with my three years technically had left the age range defined under the term of 'toddler', or if that had to wait for the year after.

I was not exactly a walking dictionary.

The black haired woman scuffled the patient-files she carried around, and I got a look at a dozen notes and pictures, before she suddenly stiffened and turned in my direction. The glare was kind of expected, but I meant business today so I did not get into the routine of mimicking the muggle's responses.

"Hey, nurse of unknown name do you have a suggesting for an activity to do when spending time together with another person?" I asked brightly, bouncing on my feet like an overexcited child.

The act was very deliberately. I loved when a moment of confusion settled in and it looked they questioned their belief for the barest of a moment. It was almost as entertaining as when they returned to blindly believing I was the fox reborn.

"No."

Not disappointing really, since I had sort of expected an immediately refusal and an order to return to my room. I rolled my eyes and discretely made a mental note about the name on her nametag. If I needed a quick victim to enact stress relief on later I knew where to find it now.

Mayu was kind of cute. Even if it sounded a bit like 'maou', which meant Satan.

My shoulders were shaking, hands moving like they were experiencing spasm of a particular violent kind. My grinned widened to show off all of my teeth, and I could almost hear my facial skin crack at the pull from my lips. This was absolutely hilarious, and I knew I would never be able to share the joke with anyone because it was at a level of fucked up where any sane person would back off.

I gave a slight bow, and thanked for her for her time before I lost my composure, only to run into a mere elderly nurse. Her grey eyes were leveled at me and hardened by more loss than I could probably imagine without remembering statistics about hungering children all over my home world and the victims of wars.

She got nothing on me, hah, the media's had spent years on desensitizing me on everything from tragic disasters claiming thousands of lives to the ruination of everything in a single person's life.

"I know of an _interesting _game you could play." I was shocked at how malicious her smile was. "It's called 'guess the plant'."

Well, what a prissy bitch.

·

"Something fun, you say…"A thoughtful expression settled on his face, bushy brows knitted together. "Well of all the youthful activities to pursue, it's the betterment of the self which should be the true goal! Only with hard work may you fully bloom in the Eternal Springtime of Youth!"

I sweat dropped. That title even used multiple instances of capitalization.

Maito Gai was the wrong person to ask about anything.

·

"Jiji, what can two people do together for fun?" I asked one afternoon where the Hokage has graced me with his presence. Stretched out on the floor with a sheet of paper containing the raw design of a storage seal before me and ink tools to my left, I made for the perfect picture of a diligent well behaved child if I had to say so myself.

An odd look morphed his face. The faraway glint in his eye gave away what unspoken thoughts passed his mind. "Ew, not that kind of fun." My nose scrunched up. "Normal things, something acceptable to do in public spaces."

The implications of my words startled him for barely a second, before his expression settled on his normal 'kind old man' mask and hid the emotion away. "Part of me doesn't want to know where you learned about these 'non-acceptable' things to do." He said amused. "This is not specially done in order to trick a response out of me, is it Naruto?"

I just grinned and replied quickly. "Nope, I'm truly in need of guidance."

The cheeky answer provoked a small smile. "I see. What sort of activity do you seek?"

I sighed. "Anything brain stimulating really."

"Have you ever heard of shogi, Naruto?"

·

"… so after much consideration on my part, I finally decided shogi was the perfect way to pass time when two are together." I nodded sagely to my one person audience. "After all, the plant game left my tummy a bit upset, so I didn't think it would fair to play with others since their reaction would be a bit more severe. The nurses were even so kind as to give me different herbs to use in the game. I was so happy about having a use for the book you gifted me with about plants."

I had a theory running that my mental health was beginning to rely on how many people I could freak out in a week, so the copy-nin's long incredulous stare was much needed. I basked in the glorifying feeling of being able to shock a professional murder into silence, closing my eyes in the hope it would linger just a bit longer.

This was what I lived for.

"Perhaps I should have a talk with the nurses." His tone was dangerously low, and my eyes opened in surprise in time to view the fury on his face. "Can I see the herbs they gave you?"

My voice proved unable to work for a second, before I managed to whisper. "Sure."

He nodded and stayed still in the chair, like he was waiting for me to act. I met his eyes with unconcealed confusion, my mind unable to grasp why my story had aroused this particular reaction. The script had been clear. He was not supposed to question me further, and just shake his head from the silliness of my story.

This emotion… it was not supposed to be like this. It was too real, showed too much concern for me as a living separate being apart from him.

He was not real.

"It's under the bed…" I got up with wooden movements, nearing the hospital bed since we had not yet left the room. The loaned shogi board had already been packed, so I could quickly get it when the copy-nin decided to visit again. "Here." I had even been given a box, and every plant sample had carefully been placed in separate containers and labeled with possible family and name of species.

He cast a glance at the collection, slowly taking one of the poisonous specimens up to study it, to confirm the truth of my story and his suspicions.

I stood beside him, shaking and unable to control my body for the first time in over a month. We were well into January of a new year, and I had finally perfected my mask. I should not have caused this fallout to happen, not by telling such a little story. Children were silly, and I had been far too dramatically to anyone to take seriously.

It was not supposed to end like this.

* * *

_Author's note: Angst, lovely, lovely angst. This chapter saw a lot of character interaction, which was fun to plan and write. _


	9. Chapter 9: Consequences of our choices

**Chapter 9: Consequences of our choices **

I had been known for isolating myself for days on end, not answering any kind of communication simply because the act seemed like it required too much work. Weeks of silence and the ability to shut everything out, had given me the unique skill of ignoring my surroundings to the point, where it seemed I was not longer part of the real world.

Kakashi did not handle it very well, when I shut down on him.

One moment my heart was hammering, sweat coming out in buckets and my body shaking like never before, and the next I was still. My head cleared and the world unfolded itself on the inside of my eyelids, small paths lightning up everywhere and most of them leading to a humorous way to die.

None of them were capable of solving my problem. This sudden display of anger had thrown me off. It had not been expected, and the world had a few minutes ago seemed incapable of delivering anything besides washed-up words of wisdom, cliché behavior and characters who seemed to only respond to my actions alone and the chain of canon events, which I knew from the manga.

This was different. This emotion was not in his character description inside my head.

I did not need it, I only needed a moment of entertaining bewilderment and then I could go on with playing my part.

This… I had no plan for this. No manual to tell me how to handle it.

It was like with Chika, a moment when I spoke too much and changed everything, but also entirely different. Chika only existed as an idea in my head; she could have every range of emotion I wished her to. Kakashi already had a template, a way of acting and reacting to the world which dictated him to either crinkle his eyes and be amused at my ramblings or prove fuel for my own amusement.

Not this.

On the other side of the wall which surrounded my mind, Kakashi had gone through every known method of attracting attention, and proceed to vanish in thin air with the correct hand seals. Leaving me alone for barely ten minutes of turmoil, before materializing out of nothing and taking me with him.

Any plans I might have had for the day had completely gone off the rails.

·

The solution to everything was apparently the Hokage.

We sat across from each other, and my presence of mind had returned enough to greet him with a nod before I continued to stare off blankly into space.

"Do you know why you're here, Naruto?"

I repeated the absent-minded nod.

"Is there something you would like to talk about?"

My mind was awfully blank, so no, not a single thing occurred to me as a possible subject. All I wanted was to go somewhere, and repress this whole morning until it faded and became just as insignificant as any other morning.

"It has been observed, that you suffer from self-destructive behavior, which is a troublesome sign, no matter the age." That was one way of putting it. Not a very clinical manner of doing it, but still it got the message across.

How did we get from willingly taking poison to this?

My face cracked up, when my facial muscles started working again. I frowned at his words, trying not to find the implications insulting. "You mean I have psychological problems? Are we talking about isolation and useless tries of repression of behavior which should not be present because of my current age, or are we talking deflection with humor and sublimation, where I take _every_ violent urge and try to transform it to something productive, resulting in my overwhelming state of boredom where I'm always pursuing a new activity?" My brief study of the subject on the net left me somewhat lacking for other fine terms and definitions, so I stopped it there. "If that's the case, then I already know I have problems, and there's no need for this intervention."

He mirrored my gloom. "You're aware that your behavior is unhealthy?"

"Deflection is a mature way of dealing with things." I leaned forward and lowered my tone of voice to its most chilling octave. "There is really no need to do this."

I would only be happy to leave and forget everything about this whole weird day.

The papers rustled on the table, drawing my gaze to what look like a massive patient file. "In the last six months your self-destructive tendencies has caused several fractures of different bones in your body, more bruises than have been accountable, burns, cases of overmedication of medicine yourself have taken from trash bags, and then there is the case of the recently self-poisoning, where you displayed awareness of the herbs ability to possible kill or cripple you."

I blinked. "Yes…?"

"You have been informed several times of the dangers associated with jumping from high building and taking medicine in order to experiment with its effects, the same can be said for sealing…"

"I have upheld my vow." This was beginning to get upsetting. "I'm aware I possess surprisingly potent regenerative powers, which in all cases have caused a minor time being incapacitated by injuries. I believe this makes your other evidence of self-destructive behavior less damning, since it for me was like what paper cuts it for others."

"There have been documented six cases of chakra exhaustion." The old man said in an unnerving calm voice. "This is a problem, whether you acknowledge it or not." A sigh followed and he bridged his nose with a strained expression. "I had never imagined you would grow up so quickly and like this, so this would be necessary."

"You know I'm intelligent." I replied in perfect monotone. "Stop hinting at a possible connection to my parents if you're not going to explain it. This much concern can only be caused by strong emotional ties, and let's face it, a few visits are far from enough to form those, so the only reason you in the first case even showed interest in me must be because of my family… or because you knew from the start about my supposed status as a demon…" I smirked. "Which one is it, Jiji?"

I got a scowl in return. "Naruto, this is not a game."

"No," I grinned and tilted my head slightly to the side. "And that's what makes this so _funny_." A hysterical edge was creeping into my voice and I let my grin become impossible wider. "This is _reality_."

"Naruto, if you do not let the mask down, then I can't help you." Dark eyes surrounded by wrinkled sun-brown skin stared into mine with an intensity I had not seen since the start of this dream-hallucination. "If you're not stable then you will not be given permission to enter the Academy and become a ninja."

"Ah, the carrot and stick approach…" I narrowed my eyes. "You forget it's only efficient, when you have a good enough prize to offer. And what I want, I can't be given." His fingers fastened at the sides of his chair, his eyes suddenly taking on a wary shine. "I can't even get it myself… I know, because I tried and tried and tried… All I can do is _wait!_"

The force of my shout left my ears ringing; chiming like small bells had been placed inside of them.

I ignored that the Hokage was readying himself to subdue me at the slightest indication of the Fox being in control of my body. Ignored how probable it would have been, if this world was real. "I'm tired of waiting." Nothing of this was real, not even he who had been with me since I had opened my eyes to this house of madness. "I just want it to end, you know…? Want to go back and forget all about this, like it never happened…"

That's when I broke down and started to cry.

I think it was around the same time I convinced him I was human and not the Nine-tail in disguise.

·

I sniffed and tried to cover my red eyes with the handkerchief with had been giving me sometime after the tears began rolling. "I apologize." The response was automatic, since it was never nice to have somebody else fall apart on you, and at the time it didn't matter who was on the receiving end. "I thought I had better composure than this."

Somewhere behind the white piece of cloth was a tired old man, who despite all beliefs was handling crying children better than expected. I would have sat awkwardly and tried to pat the child's back in silence, and instead he come with something like; "It's better to let it out than hide it, Naruto, don't apologize for this."

See, it was genius. He did not even need to get up from his chair.

I loudly blew my nose into the soft fabric and reached for the next one. The pile beside me had grown to contain a dozen, and still the old man continued to give me those things. It was like his office had been packed with every little thing ever though necessary for emergencies, even those involving hysterical brats.

"Are you ready to talk?" His tone revealed it was fine if I just kept ignoring him and continued going at the waterworks. What a patient man he was.

"Not much to say is there?" I roughly dried my cheeks on the new handkerchief, leaving my cheeks feeling awful raw. "It's a wonder I'm even still here. Not going to throw me out or anything?"

"Naruto…"

"It's the general consensus I'm the devil reincarnated, now, try to deal with that for an extended period of time and don't fall apart. Not easy." I chuckled darkly. "I'm supposed to be three, but do I seem like it? No, I'm the farthest thing from it. I want to wake up and find out this has all been a dream, but what do I want to wake up to, that's the question and I don't know the answer."

Truth and lies mixed together horrible and confusing, but I was in no mood to act and play my given character.

"I feel like I could wake up at any moment, but then something happens…" Chika, Kakashi… "And it all seems too real." My breathing was slowing down, which was a clear sign I doing the right thing in sharing my worries. Perhaps this was what I had needed to from the start; use my imaginary characters to perform a psychological assessment on myself.

"You believe this is a dream?" He sounded worried.

I lifted my gaze to meet his, and nodded once. "Can't be anything else. Shouldn't be anything else."

"And why is that?" Yes, we was here to uncover the problem slowly layer for layer and thus bringing me back to a healthier state. I was not sure if should bother getting myself into the delusion that this was helping me wake up.

It was time for a test.

My mouth paused before forming the necessary vowels and sounds of a more familiar language. "Every piece of evidence would form a mountain." I muttered in English. "Let's start with me. Small body, impossible awareness. I feel every day like it was real, time ticking past slowly and hindsight making it seem fasters… but the future's still too far away, so it all leads up to the normal perception of time. That's what's confuses me, the contradiction of this world, so impossible but still obeying laws of physic to some degree, still having people both with the emotional capacity larger and smaller than a teaspoon… But the future's already set in stone, already known, so how can it be real?"

He kept silent, which had to mean I was on the right path. Or the wrong, depending on how you looked at it.

"Let's get back to me, see what's wrong?" I flexed my hands and indicated the whole of my body. "Wrong gender and it's me behind the wheel, not comforting for anyone relying on being saved by Therapy no Jutsu. So we have the set up, but the players are all wrong. Not considering, me as a player is impossible, but repeating the same thing does nothing, right, so I have to stop saying that." A deep breath of air and I was ready to continue, but the Hokage held up a hand.

"Naruto, please speak slowly." He paused. "And in an understandable language."

English was apparently not accepted. While speaking I had clearly noticed it had gotten a bit rusty, so that meant my ability to speak it had decayed over time. Or I was imagining it together with my perception of time.

I was sighing then, knowing I only had one option of dealing with this mess as my 'this is not reality' card grew weaker.

Oh shit, I had just told him I didn't think this was real. Time to either act crazy, or get some bullshit going about childhood traumas and blaming everything on the inability of a toddler to separate reality from fiction, which would only confirm the notion that it was perfectly acceptable to view and handle me as a small child.

There never was a good time to break down.

"It all changed from one moment to another." I tried, testing the words on my tongue and finding them horrible naïve. I nailed it if I was going for childlike. "One moment people would worry for me, view me normally, like another… the next I'm being thrown out the door. They call me a monster, and even knowing the definition I can't see how I fit into it." I cleared my throat, and decided to end my own babbling. "With all these evidences, how can this be reality?"

He only nodded; a thoughtful expression on his face.

"They are right, aren't they?" I resisted rolling my eyes and continued with a deadpan voice. "You know they are right. I can see it in your eyes, _jiji._ The question is only whether you _can't_ or _won't_ tell me."

If I put enough pressure on the old man, perhaps he would forget the suspicious stuff I said. Or at least make it seem less important at the moment.

"So, I'm a monster." I blinked and tilted my head. "How did I miss that?"

"Naruto," The Hokage looked sourly tempted to rub his temples. "You know there are many dangerous individuals in this world, yes? How would civilians, with no power, view them, but as something foreign and out of this world? They do not know better, and you have felt the consequences."

Very nice save, old man. "So they know who I am. Either the circumstances of my birth were very exciting." Serious understatement. "Or my unknown parents were quite infamous. Neither of the cases explains why my identity is common knowledge, unless somebody screwed up with the secret keeping or…" I turned my head and stared out the window, which gave a nice overview of the city. "Something happened which was impossible to miss." I paused, wondering whether I should just get on with it or play too stupid to connect the pieces. "Would you deny my suspicions if I voiced them, or would you tell me the truth?"

"Sometimes the truth isn't the kinder option. I'll tell you when you're older."

"Living in ignorance can be dangerous, jiji." It looked like I had saved my own hide this time. There could not be a repeat of this incidence or it would draw too much attention to the nonsense I had blabbered in this conversation.

"This does not seem like the right time for such a heavy burden." I glanced at the small man and tried to look expressionless while a large part of me burned under his searching gaze. "I think you need time to calm down and accept that you're currently not asleep. Self-deception is dangerous, Naruto."

I ground my teeth to stop myself from glaring at him. I forced the expected agreement out after several heartbeats. "I know."

That could not have been more obvious.

·

"Naruto."

I looked tiredly up from my sandals, and stopped swinging me legs back and forth on the chair. The last bit was especially depressing since I clearly remembered a time where my feet easily could have reached the floor.

Now my very real fragile limbs barely managed to get me up on a random piece of furniture by their own power.

"Kakashi." I breathed quietly. My mouth opened and closed without any more words coming to me. I tried forming the sounds for _brother, _but pictures of my real family kept popping up in my head every time.

The silence stretched out awkwardly. I raised an eyebrow at him, when he kept staring at me like he was expecting me to get up and perform some sort of a song and dance routine.

"I'm not a monkey you know."

A flick of surprise crossed what could be seen of his face. "What?" He replied sounding momentarily stunned.

"If you can't follow that train of thought, then there's no use in elaborating." If I had had the energy I would have doused the words with light hearted humor and ended it all with a big grin. Now I could barely muster enough to keep looking at him and feigning interest in whatever purpose had driven him to come. "I'm not going to explain how my mind works to you."

"Well, I think I'm glad for it." Was that teasing? No, couldn't be.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall, while wishing it would just swallow me whole. He let me be for a couple of minutes, before cutting through my self-misery with a question.

"Where did you actually get the magazine from?"

Huh, that's was unexpected. "I remember telling you."

"I know you left the shop that day without anything." But not for lack of trying. Those ninja watchers of mine were quite the tattletales.

I cracked a single eye open. "Trying to rouse a response from me, nii-san?" It was working; I had to give him that. "It's an excellent question, but perhaps not the best place to ask it." I whispered in a tired attempt at being dramatic while indicating the whole room with one finger.

We were, after all, still in the Hokage tower.

The look of confusion told me I had to give him one more pointer. I smiled weakly. "Some people have weird hobbies. You never know what you find hidden in the dark corners of…"

He interrupted before the end like it would make the implied meaning behind my words go away. "I see."

"So," Would he go away if I ignored him? "Are you here to lead me back to the hospital?"

I needed those green walls and their promises of unending repetitive days.

"No."

I flinched. "No?"

"An apartment's been cleared." He crossed his arms and looked over my head, showing he too was feeling the overwhelming awkwardness of the situation. "You're not going back to the hospital." There was a bit of satisfaction in that tone. Had he anything to do with it? Was it some sort of an attempt to stop me from falling further into the spiral of depression?

I was not amused.

* * *

_Author's note: Somebody had to confront her. Her actions have been careless, a bit stupid and showing more instability than could be allowed to go on. _


	10. Chapter 10: Hiding in plain sight

**Chapter 10: Hiding in plain sight**

The apartment was small, but surprisingly comfortable. It consisted of four rooms; a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a bedroom. It was made for only one to live here, having only one bed for a person to sleep in. Different scenarios flew through my head, none of them making sense. It seemed sort of crazy if they expected someone of my age could live without supervision. My Anbu watchers did not count, since they provided no real guidance for me.

Kakashi watched me searching the rooms with no apparent emotion visible in his visible eye, and I observed him in return for the slightest change to his expression.

I finally stopped moving and placed myself in the middle of my new living room. It was a light grey, with a couch and television to one side and a small dining table to another. Two chairs had been placed for it, making it clear whoever had been chosen as interior designer to this project had not thought I would receive a lot of visitors.

It was still more promising than a single lonely chair in their places.

"If all goes well, this will be your home for some time" The copy-nin said somewhere behind me, interrupting my though process. "Somebody will drop off food every day and clean when necessary. You won't even realize they were here"

I nodded. "Ninjas." It was sort of obvious.

He wasted no breath on confirming my statement. "Since, you'll be living alone I'll come over as often as I can."

I turned halfway around so the ninja was in my sight, and let a single eyebrow rise, showing of my skepticism at the promise. "I'm a bit confused, and I'm not sure if I really want to ask this, but…" I glanced at the copy-nin in the corner of my eyes. "What were you paid for doing so?"

"And that was your first thought." He replied, his voice giving of less interest than I had for keeping up the appearance of a three year old.

"No, my first though was who had blackmailed you into glorified babysitting duty. Then I remembered who's running this village." I poked the couch, wondering what the hell had caused this. "You think removing me from my former environment will improve my mental condition, or is this a result of a collected petition of the doctor and nurses, because I really can't tell at the moment?"

"Someday I'll find out who introduced you to sarcasm."

"Nothing in this world is certain." I said sagely. "Except death, discounting the stuff in between that and birth such as desires, countless failure in achieving those and the tendency for murphy's law to be proved right again and again."

I winced when the hand came down and started patting my head.

"You'll never stop doing that, will you?" I complained in a low murmur.

"No." I blinked when I was turned around to face the crouched copy-nin's one visible eye. "I've lived longer than you, so believe me when I tell you, I felt pain. Times have been bad." Wha… Wait was we doing this for real, having a heart to heart talk about shared experiences and things like that? "But even when thing seems bad, remember it could always be worse. You have your whole future in front of you, Naruto. Don't turn your back on your life before it has begun."

Nope, I was mistaken. This was only a reprimand.

"I know, nii_-san_." I smirked, thoroughly amused by the irony of the situation. "I'm not one who'll ever stop fighting. Such wise words from a clearly old man… can you truthfully say you have lived by that?"

A noncommittal grunt was the answer, which provoked an eye roll from me.

"I know I have physiological problems. I know I have to deal with them." I shook off his hand and took a step backwards before spreading my arms out and rotating in a wide circle. It was a childish movement, but it would only emphasize my point. "So, what are you going to do about yours, hm?"

"You're a bit quick with the accusations, Naruto. Shouldn't you be concentrating on yourself?"

"You're deflecting." I said in a singsong voice, skidding towards the big windowsills at one side of the room. The view from this height had to be pretty, or at least comparable to that from my hospital room. "It doesn't make it less true."

My decision to let the subject lie showed off my lightened mood. Such generosity was seldom seen from me, even when I felt giddy and ready to burst with laughter.

How lucky he was.

·

It was still early morning when I arrived. I stopped at the entrance, and starred down at the line separating the ground from the street, and rocked back and forth in my sandals at the invisible line. Part of me was unsure what I hoped to gain by the coming there. It was unclear if I had come here only to prove myself better than my so-called brother and his fears of confrontations, or if I truly wanted a genuine joyful experience from being there.

I remember the Greek _'know thyself' _and the words of Sun Tzu. I had received 'the Art of War' one Christmas in my home reality, and had not let it go until I had partially memorized everything.

It was one of the smaller things I missed these days.

"If you know the enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." I whispered while crossing the line which somehow managed to separate two distant realms. "If you know neither, every outcome will be bleak."

My toes wiggled in the open sandals, and I straightened my back as I looked around the foreign landscape. It looked peacefully now, as empty as it was, but in a few hours the tale would be wildly different. I had to endure it, had to show I was better than an immature child who couldn't face her own problems. It was a declaration of war against all those who viewed me as simply another brat, which meant it was somewhat inclusive of anyone I had ever met in this world.

This was the playground for the children of Konoha.

The greatest challenge I had faced until now.

I took a deep breath and held it, halfway expecting the ground to cease to exist from beneath me. It would almost be nicer if the earth could just swallow med whole, since it was a damn good excuse for not having to do this. "Come on world, show me your hate."

Nothing happened.

The air left me like a punctured balloon, and I started walking towards the swings. I placed myself on one of the slightly rusty seats and stared ahead. It would be some time before people showed up, so I had plenty of time to wallow in misery and regret my decision. I snickered at the thought, and proceed to do what a child was supposed to do with a swing: see how high you can get and then jump like a maniac.

All very relaxing and such, since I had gotten used to much more extreme heights. I had even learned quite a bit about landings and takeoffs, considering I only had my own experience to rely on.

I got company while trying to gain enough momentum to do a flip in the air, and I landed somewhat off. My left knee took most of the damage and I quickly balanced myself by placing my right hand on the ground. The three kiddies blinked at me, before dismissing me and walking past. They were around eight to ten by my estimate, and none of them bearing any recognizable marks of any clan.

Perhaps they were civilians.

I lifted myself from the ground, standing still for a moment to stare after them with my brain working in overdrive. It had been an embarrassing introduction, but maybe it would allow me to be accepted into their… circle? Ranks? I groaned at myself.

"Why am I doing this?" I murmured before setting course towards the children, who had gathered around the seesaw. Already arguing about who should go first.

On second thought, this was a worse idea than first imagined.

"Uhm, hello?" I winced at my own unsure tone, and the three only looked reluctantly in my direction. I repeated the mantra I had gone through before coming here: '_this is not pedophilia, there's no sexual attraction or anything'._ "Want to…?" Why did I still feel like a sex offender?

"No." Oh, thank goodness. "We don't want anything to do with a small kid."

My eyebrows twitched.

"Go away." Another shooed.

I just watched them with dead eyes. It unnerved them until they remembered they could just ignore me and go somewhere else on the playground.

This was just fantastic, absolutely amazing.

Well, I tried.

I went back to the swing and started waiting for more kiddies to arrive. I had reserved this day for interacting with people of my current physical age, and no one was going to stop me from trying my hardest at that. Whether I was successful or not in my endeavors meant little.

This was a matter of pride now.

·

Perhaps I would have better luck with a group of younger girls "Can I…"

"Mum doesn't want you near us."

I glanced at the strict looking woman, who had seated herself on one of the benches. Her narrowed eyes were locked on me with the burning ferocity of a mother bear. "Oh…"

·

Two older boys? Sure, that would be just as rewarding as pissing myself.

·

Somebody actually said yes. I wonder what's wrong with the world, it seems like it just tilted on its axis. Perhaps I am being too pessimistic.

Why do they want to go to the woods now? Must be some form of hide-and-seek.

·

The sun moved across the sky, and soon night came.

Someone crept around in the dark of the playground, and I acknowledge the silhouette of a man, which moved closer and closer to me. The white mask on his face made it quite easy to spot him. "Anbu-san," I kept glaring ahead. "Are you here to order me to go home?" My imagination could not help itself and was already conjuring up other possible scenarios involving mask stealing assassins. I had experience in ignoring it, but my muscles refused to relax

The ninja kept silent.

I tried readjusting my ponytail and my fingers flickered past dried leaves and sticks, which had decided to nest in my hair. The man remained unmoving, which had to mean he truly was Anbu. I did not allow relief to show, and set my jaw instead as I pulled the tree parts out of my hair with violent movements.

"You know, I waited to do this until Kakashi was on a long-term mission, so no one would do _that_." I was whining so pathetically, I should just get the brat reward. "So is it professionalism stopping you from answering, or just more plain old hate of girl who haven't reached the age of four yet?"

The goal had been accomplished. I had stayed the whole day at the grounds and suffered rash treatment of parents and children who suddenly decided their sires scorn was justified and I deserved punishment for it. I knew kids were supposed to emulate their parents, but not to that extent. Where was the rebelliousness?

I glowered at the dark silhouette of one of my watchers.

"I'll go home, happy now?"

I walked off, muttering about the wretchedness of children and my useless overseers.

·

I reported my failure at the playground in a dull monotone to Kakashi at the first chance I got and was hit with a candy stick in return. I ducked out of surprise and stayed still for quite some time before reality sat in.

When I started complaining another piece of hardened sugar was thrown my way, and from the way his eyes curved I guess he had plenty more where they came from.

I stopped before the man unintentionally gave me diabetes.

"This is not how you should deal with kids, depressed or not." I said sulkily, turning the bright red candy stick around in my tiny hands.

His response made me snort. "But it works."

Sure, give the child a sugar overdose. That solves everything.

It would be nice if it was that way.

My reputation was really beginning to be a problem. I was not responsible for any household chores or management of funds at the moment, but I would be in a couple of years, and when that time came I would be hard pressed to find a store willing to let me buy anything at fair prices. If I could solve the little problem with my appearance being well known, then a lot of potential conflicts in the nearest future would cease to exist.

I eyed the ninja in front of me, wanting to face palm when the solution was so apparent.

"Nii-san." I had worked on my puppy eyes, so I was sure they looked completely sincerer. "If you really want to help, then don't give me sugar." He was beginning to retreat, a wary expression on his face. "Grabbing the root of the problem, that's the most efficient way, no?" If the glances towards door were any indication, then he had gotten quite good at reading me. "So teach me the Henge technique!"

His one visible eyebrow rose a bit, and he stopped looking like for an escape. For a moment I actually thought he was considering, but then came the doubting words. "You're three."

I thought we had established I was different from most other kiddies my age by now.

"And you're point is?"

"You're three. Try to enjoy your childhood a bit before throwing it away."

No matter what argument I used he refused to give in to my simple request, and the day was spent glaring at the copy-nin from across the shogi board. It did not help I was still terrible at the game, so he won nine times out of ten. Some part of me was even dubious that I won by my own power those few times I did.

It annoyed me more than I liked, that he refused me. Even sensible reasons like self-protection had been shut down, and I was horrible aware of the fact that being generally hated did not lessen the chance of a murderers getting me in my sleep. Who knew what my earlier stunt with the clerk had stirred of dark emotions in the villagers. If plot did not dictate this world then that small change could mean the difference between life and death.

If the ninjas watching over me were as incompetent as I feared, then it would be easy for an assassin to end me.

Not a nice way to go.

While cleaning up after the game one of the king pieces dropped to the floor, the one I had begun to think of as my own because I almost always had the piece symbolizing the lower ranked player. I reached for it, and froze at a sudden epiphany at the sight of the lone piece lying on the floor.

I was only half aware of laughing manically afterwards.

·

"We have already talked about this…" I had a Hokage frowning at me. If I had not initiated the talk about the current subject, I would have been cautious and started regressing to more childlike behavior in order to appear innocent.

"Yes, but the incident beforehand can be said to have had an influence on that agreement." I pointed out, unable to hide the underlying glee in my words. "Furthermore, this is not about making explosive or dangerous seals, but purely defensive. I have had a year to experiment under yours and Kakashi's watchful eyes, and nothing have blown up yet."

"In that time 23 dangerous seals have been barely stopped from being activated."

"Two thirds of those were in the first month." I crossed my arms in front of my chest defensively. "That's normally called progression."

The old man sighed. "What prompted this idea?"

"Being hated?" My brows knitted. "Is that not a legitimate reason to worry? Fūinjutsu seems to be a versatile art, so the idea that is capable of making barriers isn't that strange. And since you have not disproved my theory, it seems my idea have merit."

"Learning an art without a teacher is close to impossible." The Hokage countered with.

I grinned and barely stopped at raising one finger and waggling it. "Necessity is the mother of invention"

His gaze darkened. "One mistake could cost you your life, Naruto."

"No pain, no gain." I sobered and sat up straight, trying to scold every line in my body and face to spell seriousness. "Not learning now could mean the same cost in a couple of years. Give me an advantage in this vast world, and it would lessen the chance of me experiencing an early demise."

A tense moment passed by, before the man's shoulders sank in defeat.

"I'll allow you to experiment with defensive seals, if you tell me the truth about what made you consider this."

I blinked in surprise. "A lonely shogi piece on the floor. Without anyone else, it's nothing. It has no means of protecting itself but can only run until it's caught. It can eject no shields, employ no defensive maneuvers or hide away." My lips stretched in a humorless smile. "Humans have so many other options, no? I decided to use what resources I have to try and fix my problem, and only Fūinjutsu seemed like a passable solution at the moment."

He shook his head slightly. "I must get back to my office. Try not to get overboard with it."

In the excitement I almost forgot about my other plan. We exchanged our customary parting words, and it was first when he had turned his back to me that that I remembered the other question I needed to ask.

"Oh, and Jiji?" The fact that one plan was progressing nicely, did not mean I had to be satisfied. "Can I get dye to my hair? Even a bit of cosmetics would be helpful."

It was clear to see the refusal in his gaze, and I tried to swallow the worst of the bitter disappointment before he voiced it.

"Perhaps when you're older."

Age perception; you're quite the bitch, aren't you?

"At least gift me a mask or something at my next birthday," I ended up mumbling, painfully aware I was months away from the grand date. At least I had something to do with the time I spent trapped indoors.

It was not inactivity I was going to die of before reaching four years of age.

·

My experiments proved mostly unsuccessful. Some ideas sprouted and withered the same day they came into being, other were scribbled down after countless testing and gained the status of being a possible truth. I felt like a scientist overlooking the stacks of paper of theories, failed experiments and successful seals.

But my results so far were not important, if I could not utilize them in battles.

My birthday came and went without much fanfare, just a lot of drunks and people walking around like zombies outside my windows.

I did not realize the true limitations of wearing a mask before my first meeting with Kakashi after the 10th October.

It was a cold and windy autumn day, but I had taken the copy-nin by his hand and pulled him with me outside in the less than favorable weather. I had noticed his unconcealed surprise when I had greeted him in the door, but no commentaries were directed towards my new accessories.

By now I was only waiting for the mocking to begin, and I actually felt a great deal of anticipation to the following banter.

He glanced at me in the corner of his eye, like he was trying not to stare, but curiosity was winning. Then he cracked. "So, where did you get the mask?"

I grinned behind the safety of the mask and responded curtly. "Birthday gift from Jiji. I asked for it." More like begging than asking, but it was practically the same, just a more extreme version. "Didn't see any from you, nii-san."

"Still searching." Bad move, Kakashi. Now my standards had just risen, and anything below awesome was so not going to cut it. "So… why?"

"Masks are very stylish." I dramatically flashed my eyelashes at him. "I though you knew all about that."

"And the bandana?" He was giving me an 'eye smile' now. "Has that also become very fashionable?"

"Let's just say, it's an experiment." I fingered the dark clothes with a frown. It would be very uncomfortable in the summer. "One's that has been quite successful until now, even if I look ridiculous." We were walking past people, and no one was glaring at me. It that was not success, the definition of the word had changed.

"I thought masks were 'stylish', Naruto." Was he actually teasing me? It was so hard to tell with this guy. "Are you so quickly going back on your words?"

"Truth change in accord with how reality is perceived." I replied automatically. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." A smile awoke in memory of the quote. "Right now my opinion is placed firmly on 'this is the goofiest getup I've ever worn'."

He gave a nod in agreement. "As long as you never show up in any pink dresses, you'll be fine."

Another grin was hidden due to the mask, but he seemed to sense it, since regret flashed across his face. His eye narrowed at me. "I'll be long gone, before you find me if you show up in that. And no, you don't get to choose any kind of clothes for me since you're wearing a mask today."

I pouted for a second, the mask getting in my way, since the action accomplished nothing if the other part could not see it.

That was it. The mask was coming off as soon as I got home.

"I'm surprised you're staying silent" Kakashi lightly commented, and I snorted at the failed attempt at subtlety. The man was actually worried about me on some level.

I directed my wide blue eyes in his direction, trying to make them as watery as possible. He did not look impressed. "I think covering half my face left me clawless. My techniques do not hold the same power with only the eyes behind them, so I think it would be best to wait before having a discussion about the subject."

"The mask is temporary then." The man was terrible at being discrete.

"There are a lot of disadvantages to wearing a mask I had not considered." I said tactfully. "How easy do you think it would be to get patches to cover my scars and some hair dye from a shop?"

"Naruto" The copy-nin stood still and forced me to stop as well, unless I wanted to leave the man behind. He had an aura around him which spelled seriousness, and I could only glare back at him with a dull eyes. The muggles around us didn't even glance at us. I wondered if they knew my name, or only had a description of my appearance to go after.

I did not need another lecture.

"Kakashi." I echoed mockingly.

He sighed. "Why are you this determined at hiding yourself?" The man probably already knew, and was only asking since he could not make a big speech before I admitted my reasons.

"Pretty obvious, no?" The sarcasm was practically dripping of my words. "Either you teach me the Henge, or I'll have to search for another way to solve this _problem_. Call it a birthday gift if you want, it'll be the best one I've ever had." Discounting those in my former li… reality. Damn, don't start thinking about this as your current life. "Please." I used no begging tone nor did I try to use any sort of adorable expression in order to convince him, but somehow it was the most sincere I had said since coming here. "I need your help."

The man took a deep breath before closing his eye. Conflict was visible in the tense line of his shoulders.

"Fine."

I gasped into my hands which slowly drifted from my mouth and pulled through the strands of my hair. Some part of me wanted to celebrate, another felt weak with relief, and I could not decide which should be allowed to express itself.

In the end I turned toward the grey haired man and embraced his legs, whispering a soft 'thank you' into the dark fabric of his trousers.

Things were finally looking up.

* * *

_Author's note: We have finally reached a point where time can start to speed up. Yay, time to interact with other characters. _


	11. Chapter 11: Time only goes one way

**Chapter 11: Time only goes one way**

I felt like tearing my hair out. "Come on, work!" The innocent looking paper in front of me did not react in any visible way to my yelling, but I could feel it mocking me. My fingers rested on the edges of the paper, a solemn promise that I would rip it apart if it did not follow my wishes.

Chakra flashed through it again, touching pathways that were already there but somehow… lacking.

I lifted my fingers from the paper and tried to remember the sensation of chakra and how it had felt. I had had my difficulties with picking up the Henge, since hands seals did not have the same effect on my chakra pathways as it did for others. I had discovered the solution by accident, and had started hitting myself mentally seconds after since Kakashi would not have approved of me doing it physically in his presence.

My work with seals should have prepared me for the problem. If I remembered correctly I had even thought about the possibility of the problem, when the Hokage had gifted me with my first storage seal.

I could not perform hand seals.

The act of mimicking the right gestures was within my abilities, off course, but it was just as rewarding as picking my nose, just a lot less gross. I had to do anything manually. Memorizing the way my chakra pathways should move to get the sought effect was exhausting, and the manipulations needed changed a bit according to what I wished of the technique. The advantage of being able to do the Henge hand seal free, did not lessen the problems I would face by trying to perform any ninjutsu of genjutsu with my shoddy mental reaction time. I would even have to account for the changes in my chakra pathways if I decided to use any jutsu while still under the Henge, since there was a vast difference between my natural state and the Henge induced state of my chakra pathways.

My future in this world was looking somewhat bleak.

I would probably be able to memorize a few jutsus and how I should manipulate my chakra in order to produce them, but any thought of a big arsenal to the point of paranoia would have to be forgotten.

Perhaps I had damaged myself by experimenting with chakra early on. It was either that or my weird status, which I could not think too deeply about without going into full out depressive mode.

Due to my problems, gaining either sage-mode or bijuu-mode would strip me off all my jutsus while using them unless I had time to train and adjust myself to the changes. That was the biggest 'screw you' this world had given me yet, and there was seemly no way to overcome it.

Relying heavily on Fūinjutsu seemed like the only way I could survive the future.

That was why I was now looking down at one of my many failed seals entirely in English. The enemy would have no idea what they did, and I refused to believe the language of this world was the only way to connect to chakra.

The heat coming from the paper supported my notion.

I twirled the ink brush between two fingers on my left hand and tried to figure out what I was missing. The seals of the Naruto-verse looked like artworks, beautiful and structured like a grand pattern lay behind each and every one of them.

I studied at my English letters and it slowly dawned on me how much space there was between each word. Roughly I connected the words and filled out a bit of the blank space in order to get a clearer network, and in the end my flower seal felt done.

I reached for its heat and took a shaking deep intake of air, when I felt it respond to me.

The next moment the paper rose from the table, almost tearing itself apart when the ribbons of words twisted themselves to form a perfect dome around the paper slip. I poked it curiously with one finger and almost found it going through some of the gaps between the inky black ribbons.

Concept proved as acceptable, but improvements were needed before use.

·

It was a bright day, the sun high in the sky and spring in full bloom. I had waited until a visit from Kakashi to test my new appearance for the first time in public, and the man had taken one look at me with knitted brows before turning passively silent. I had expected a bit more from the copy-nin, and only regained my thunder when muggle after muggle passed by me without a glare or hateful comment directed my way.

The results seemed promising.

No one even turned around, when I started talking to myself while being seated on a random bench by the marketplace. "Log 6033, experiment successful." I muttered, leaning over the long scroll to ease my writing position. "No one suspects a thing…"

My companion proved he had some care for the world around him hidden in the depths of his heart. He drily voiced his confusion. "Why have you brought a journal to write in?"

Such a genius question required an equally brilliant answer. "The funny answer would be 'because that's what crazy scientist does; document everything'!" I replied cheerfully.

"And the true?"

I raised my head to meet his eyes and grinned. "I like to make you uncomfortable. You have such funny reactions, which is a bit weird since I can only see one fourth of your face. I still haven't figured out how you make the mask work."

He stared at me for a while before turning away. Not giving any reaction to the obvious bait.

I gave the scroll a lovingly stroke before closing it up. It had taking an exceptional bit of work to make it look like I really kept a journal for my work, and Kakashi dared to ignore it. I considered my options while biting the inside of my cheek. The man was a hard nut to crack at times, but not impossible if you went about it the right way. I had figured he would react weirdly to my different appearance and would start avoid me again, so all this planned silliness was really just to nip the problem in the bud.

What to do, what to do. So many options, so few generally accepted.

My grin widened a bit. I jumped from my seat and in front of him, before starting to jump up and down like an overeager puppy. "Now, how much practice do you need think I need to disguise myself to look like a realistic corpse, nii-san?"

The man was surprisingly dull that day.

·

A redheaded girl with short spiky hair watched me from the mirror. Dark blue eyes stared back instead of cerulean, and my cheeks were missing their signature marks. I had based my new appearance on my memories of Kushina Uzumaki, and I think I pulled the look of decently.

Even if I had been sourly tempted to just give myself dark brown hair, paler skin and eyes so dark they looked black, I had resisted changing my appearance to match my real one.

I would have gained nothing from being constantly reminded of what I have lost every time I caught a glimpse of my own reflection.

"Naruto Uzumaki." I muttered, touching a spiky strand of red hair which defied gravity. "Uzumaki Naruto." I was not sure what exactly I was trying to do; whether this was a way to convince myself of my current identity or just me wondering how the hell I ended up here. My new appearance did at least lent credence to the origins of my surname.

I wonder if it would change anything. Only Nagato and Karin were shown in the manga as being remaining members of the scattered Uzumaki clan, but my status as a Jinchuuriki kind of predetermined my relationship with a least one of them.

Obito Uchiha, Black Zetsu and Nagato, the Big Three, they were the ones I needed to kill in order to prevent the whole disastrous moon plan, which freed the equivalent of a crazy goddess.

I wondered if it would do me any good to mumble their names before going to sleep. Arya had had great fun with her hit list. I cracked a smile at the thought before moving on to another more concerning subject at the moment.

My problems with chakra manipulation had one clear advantage, which had been revealed after a discussion with Kakashi about the limits of the Henge. For most users of the Henge, they lost their current form if they were hit and thus lost control of their chakra. It was sort of like shadows clones, since they also dispelled when hit with enough force.

My manual manipulation of my chakra made it so I was sort of stuck in Henge-mode until I returned my pathways to their original layout.

Any chakra sensor or person possessing either the Sharingan or the Byakugan should be able to see through it if I remembered correctly, but since the only purpose behind utilizing the jutsu was hiding from the civilians, that little aspect should not give me any problems.

It also helped I had convinced the copy-nin, and to an extension the Hokage, of my great need for matching hair dye and plasters in case the jutsu failed while I attended Academy. Until then I had been advised to avoid getting hurt in a way which would dispel the jutsu.

I had an excellent failsafe, and no one who knew of my special circumstances. Everything seemed to go perfectly.

Only a few months were left before I could start at the Academy.

·

The door was opened before I had finished knocking.

"Good morning, nii-san!" I stared smugly back at the copy-nin who was sporting a case of periorbital dark circles, and danced around him before the door could be smacked in my face. " It is such a lovely morning, no? Birdsong and everything." I said cheerfully while marching to his kitchen, where the smell of freshly made bacon was coming from.

There was a tired grunt from behind me, which indicated he strongly disagreed. "How did you know I was back?"

"Why, nii-san, are you telling me your so vigilant eyes could not even see a detection seal made by a small child had been placed in your doorframe?" I clicked my tongue and shook my head slowly while nearing the pile of thinly sliced and roasted pork. "Are you beginning to slip in your old age?"

His gaze turned back towards to door, and he took the time to smack my fingers as they reached for the delicious food of the gods, before he checked whether I had told the truth. I glared at his back and managed to snatch a piece of bacon before the man returned with two slips of paper no larger than my pinkies. I had darkened them to a point where they weren't quite as obvious against any dark surfaces, such as Kakashi's front door, and it seemed to have worked.

I wondered how big a part, his exhaustion played in that.

"They alarmed me this morning, so I guess you used a window to get in tonight..." I tilted my head and swallowed the rest of my stolen piece of goodness before continuing. "Unless you came back barely fifteen minutes ago."

He looked at me with one dead eye, before going back to his kitchen counter and continuing making breakfast. I watched him in silence for a minute, while seated by the dining table, before I started quipping about his panda eyes.

The ninja paid me no attention and just went about his business like I did not exist.

I began to pout and was handed a mug of undetermined fluids in return, as either a peace offering or a way to shut me up. My mind had little concern towards the fluid's origin, since the fox in my gut would hinder any form of poisoning, so I just lifted the mug to my lips and started drinking.

I was so dreadfully wrong.

Liquid sprayed across the table, and Kakashi took a step backwards to avoid getting hit by the flood of dark fluid. I wiped my mouth with one sleeve while staring in shock at the innocent little mug. "Oh, my poor mouth's virginity…" Black liquid was fired off beside of me, a choking noise following. "It's been ruined forever!"

I glared at the mug. "What the hell was that? Rotten milk taken from the snake of pure evil?"

His shoulders were shaking like he was laughing but I was unable to see his face since he had once again turned around to face the counter. Not to mention the mask would have been in the way anyway, but at least I would have been able to check for 'eye smiles'.

"Do you have to be this sadistic in the morning?" The empty mug was pushed as far away as I could. "… Should not be allowed this early…"

Mumbling came from the counter.

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, not willing to let the evil thing out of sight. "Hm, what?"

"It's coffee." A sound suspicious close to snickering reached my ears. "Or it _was_."

The mug was still standing innocently in the middle of the table in a puddle of black liquid. "I refuse to believe that." I was experiencing an increasing need to scrub the inside of my mouth with cleaning agents. "The day that becomes coffee, is the day this world starts to make sense."

"I think you misspoke, Naruto." He said in his best deadpan.

"I know what I said." I glowered. "And I stand by my words. This insane asylum does not need to suddenly start running on logic, it would hurt my brain."

That sound was definitively snickering.

"Oh, just laugh it off already. It's your table which has been ruined." I sulked, feeling a bit offended at the continued sound of his mocking laughter.

His voice was annoyingly calm. "And who was guilty of that?"

"You did your own spit take" I argued, given the accused mug and the man alternating glares. It was hard to decide who held most of the blame.

Kakashi cleared his throat loudly, and my gaze locked on his back. "That could be said to be entirely your fault. "

"Very mature, _nii-san_, I think I have heard a saying going kind of like this; 'don't blame others for your own actions'." I smirked. "Hearing some unmeant insinuations in my words, you dirty minded old man?"

A plate of bacon was sat in front of me. I stared wide-eyed at the prize, water already dripping of my teeth. "Just eat and be quiet."

I saluted him before digging in. My eyes closed in bliss and I moaned slightly at the perfect crispy consistency and taste.

Such yummy goodness.

I glanced at the ninja when he seated himself opposite me with another filled mug of so called 'coffee', apparently completely disinterested in saving his table from strains. My lips pinched together, and I tried to ignore the growing feeling of guilt from the bottom of my stomach by taking another large bite of bacon.

Wonderful, now he had ruined my porky bites of heaven.

I pushed the plate towards him and into the pool of spilled coffee. He lifted an eyebrow and I scowled at him before jumping down from the chair with direction towards the sink. Somebody needed to clean the mess up.

"So… why did you really come here? There's easier ways to test your Fūinjutsu and you're not usual this keen on company, Naruto, especially in the morning." You had one bad day, and your surroundings would never let it go again.

"Perhaps, I thought it had been too long since your last visit." I wrung the water out of the cloth with forceful movements. "That hypothetical could have been the case."

"But it is not."

He was kind of pushy this morning. Then again, the fact that something was bothering me and I was using him as stress relief could not be clearer. He was good for that.

"Well..." I turned away from the sink and towards him while biting my lip. "Academy is starting soon…"

"Yes..." There was an unspoken '_and?' _behind that affirmation.

"I've just realized I have no idea how I should act in order to _not _come across as creepy or weird to them." My eyes narrowed at a suspicious movement of his shoulders. "This is not funny. It's a really, really serious matter, which will hunt me…"

"You're starting tomorrow, right?" He was pointing out a whole lot of unnecessary things today. Such a stupid question really did not deserve a serious answer.

"See, twenty-four hours is a long time, practically an eternity for anyone in my age range." I grinned at him before starting to clean the table. "What did you do to avoid appearing as an unsociable bastard?"

He gave me a long dead stare. "In your case the first step would be not talking."

"You're not being very helpful." I stopped in my work and tilted my head frowning. "This does nothing to enforce the image of you as a wise old man in my eyes. Remember, it's important to appear as a good role model to the younger generation, since we're so terrible impressionable."

"I would be happy if you stopped talking."

"See, absolutely terrible. You should never be allowed to be in charge of children. They would learn horrible manners."

·

I woke up in the middle of the night and started cleaning my apartment. It was technically not my job, since it was handled by somebody while I was out every other day, but I had stumbled upon the cleaning agents while searching around my living space. Boredom had done the rest.

And well, it felt good to have some kind of control over my environment, even if it only amounted to how my apartment looked.

I left my 'home' in an oversized jumper hiding more scrolls than would ever be necessary, wishing I owned either kunai or shuriken already, so I did not have to take small knives with me in improvised sheaths. It annoyed me a bit people insisted on sewing the symbol of the destroyed village of the Uzumaki clan into the back of every piece of clothing I owned which covered the upper half of my body, since it felt like somebody deliberate had placed a red giant target board on my back.

Walking the street alone with the insignia on my back and my disguise showing left me feeling somewhat vulnerable.

No one was glaring, but the mask I wore to deceive them felt paper thin, even knowing logically that there was no way any civilian could disrupt my Henge. I had even tried to get my first name changed and assigned a new birthday in an attempt to further the distance between the blonde whisker faced demon and the redheaded innocent Uzumaki girl. Only the last one had been allowed, and I was now proudly five in any official papers outside the Hokage office, even if my host body would first celebrate its birthday in a couple of months.

I suppose it could be argued I was a bit of a perfectionist in addition to being paranoid.

The classroom which had been described and chosen to house the new year of academy students was quite easy to find since I had already been walked there the week before. A bit under a dozen children had arrived already with their parents, and I paused shortly in the door in order to get an overview of those who had arrived.

There were plenty of brunettes and raven haired, and a single blonde girl but no sign of pink.

I had never really understood how the classes and the academy worked in the manga, considering Naruto had managed to fail two times but still graduate with the others of his age. Most likely you could get an early exam, and that was how Kakashi and Itachi had finished ninja school in a year or so each. The starting age was a bit more undefined, and looking around I found myself to be the shortest new student in the room with my height of just over a meter.

The tallest one dwarfed me by two of my old hand spans.

I frowned and turned towards the blonde girl who I guessed was Ino of the mind reader clan, finding myself a bit shocked when brown eyes stared back at me. She turned her gaze away when my lips tightened and my eyes narrowed.

She was not really a blonde; her hair had a brown shine to it which would likely become more pronounced with age. She was also at least two years my senior judging by her stature.

I had fucked up, hadn't I?

I moved away from the doorframe and tried to hide myself in the back of the classroom, while thinking my new situation through. It was not like these children would not become ninja, who had the potential of being capable, but I knew nothing about them which made any decision both harder and easier. They were cannon fodder, not really important in the grand scheme of things and getting on a team with any of them would mean one less bond with an important character which could help me in my quests to kill the Big Three.

Waiting for the rookie nine would mean wasting time, and even the members of Team Guy were not among my new classmates, which meant I had no reason to wait around before graduating.

The smartest option would be to just race through academy and start learning more effectively under a jōnin sensei, unless I utilized my time to self-learn skills but even then it was not guaranteed I would get more out of it than if I had just hurried on to become genin.

Decisions… So many variables, possibilities, different paths to take…

"…Tomato." I blinked and turned my head sharply towards two boys who stood close to me without any parental supervision. Part of me noted some of the parents where slowly leaving, while the rest tried to figure out what they hell they were snickering about. "… She has hair like a tomato…"

Please save me from idiots… Was this really happening? My brows twitched.

"Do you think her face turn the same shade when…?" The same boy continued on, before being interrupted by a nudge to his shoulder.

"Shh…she's looking over here."

"It doesn't matter if she hears. Do you see how little she is? She should not be here."

Seriously, I could not even get mad of them. This was too silly for me to handle, too much like the story of my supposed mother that it should be happening to me. My lips stretched into a wide smile and I shook my head before returning my attention to things which actually mattered.

Make no mistake, if they started calling me names in childish silliness there would be repercussions, but simply discussing their classmates using clichés and rude descriptions was not an act worth punishing.

My brows knitted together as my mind returned to speculating about my future career choices.

"Hello." I glanced to my right and found a raven-haired girl smile shyly back at me. "I've seen older ninjas wear the spiral you have on your back, and were wondering if you know what it means?"

"Well… you know how each clan have their own symbol?" The girl blinked, and I judged it to being of the understanding kind and not simply because she was completely blank. "This is the symbol of a prominent clan from a destroyed village which had a strong alliance with Konoha. The alliance in itself came into being partly because the Senju and the prominent clan of the destroyed village, The Uzumaki, shared close blood ties. This caused Konoha to feature the Uzumaki spiral on their flak jackets, which symbolizes the rank of chūnin or higher for a ninja. So while other ninjas of Konoha wear this symbol to honor the memory of friendship between the two villages, I wear it because it's the symbol of my clan. Do you understand?"

The way she gnawed on her under lip indicated she did not. "So the Uzumaki moved to Konoha after their village was destroyed?"

"No. Most of them were slaughtered, and I have no idea what happened to the other clans in the village." I shrugged. "Guess they were scattered to the winds."

Horror replaced her cute confused little expression. "I see…" She started retreating and I smirked in amusement at her clear discomfort at being even near me after that little story. "Thank you."

Then she was gone to the other side of the room.

I supposed it was time to train my own sensitiveness.

A ninja in a green flak jacket, which showed of the same symbol I had just explained the meaning of, showed up before I could get further with my speculations. My brows started twitching soon after the obligatory name round and introduction, when he started rambling about our duty to the village and the honor in being a ninja.

We are nothing more than small soldiers in training who specializes in assassination, stop deluding young minds about the grandeur of our position.

I listened for about half a minute before I took out a scroll which contained paper and writing tools.

There were a hundred better ways to pass the time than listening to this meaningless drivel.

Before the day was over I had been hugged by several more courageous females while being avoided by the majority, getting petted more than should be allowed and called tomato a fair share of times after they grew tired of calling me fish cake. Those who held goodwill towards me dwindled to a small number after I had dealt with the offenders who had taken to the derogatory term of either tomato or fish cake.

Personally I though it fair to bind them to their chairs with seals, making it impossible for them to even talk. It both showed them how insignificant they were and made it impossible for them to interrupt me while I lectured them on their grave error of insulting me to my face. They were ninjas in training, so they could at least have been discrete about their dislike of me.

I thought it was a great speech.

"Since you obvious have never been taught any manners at home, it unfortunately seems to fall to me to teach you how you treat others with respect." I stood erect before them with my glorious height of one meter. "This does not only include females, but your fellow males as well, and if I hear or see any of you showing the same disrespect to anyone around you, I swear the consequences will be more severe than a simple timeout."

Every speech needed a dramatic pause, and I used to time to check that the teacher had not returned yet.

"Now, perhaps some of you think it will be easy to beat me as soon as you gain freedom of movement again. To those poor fools there's nothing really I can say." I shook my head and pulled forth the biggest knife I had on my person. "But I can show you this." With those words I stabbed myself in my arm, letting the steel stay in for a moment so the blood could begin to drip off it. "I'm not afraid of pain."

I yanked the knife out of my arm and pointed it at them with expressionless eyes. The offenders had stilled any attempt of escaping my bounds and the rest of my audience look enraptured on in silence with pale faces.

"And do not think, even if you get me, that I'll stay down." I held my arm forth and showed them the closing wound. It would hurt and be the cause of pain for some days, but hopefully it would discourage them from retaliating in order to mend their bruised egos.

I glimpsed tears in some of their eyes, and reconsidered what had driven me to doing this in front of an assembly of six year olds.

One of the girls started weeping.

Perhaps this was not one of my better ideas.

* * *

_Author's note: I have not been able to find a clear age where students start at the academy, so I went with my own notion about it: normally children start somewhere around 6 to 7. With emphasize on __normally__, since it's not really war times, so children are allowed to be children for a longer time. _


	12. Chapter 12: Following the flow

**Chapter 12: Following the flow**

I walked in on the Hokage resting his head in his hands, looking quite displeased. The reaction had been sort of expected, since I had the time to sit down and think my actions through. The message from my normally hidden Anbu watchers had confirmed my suspicions about how bad the incident was.

When the first child had stepped forth and confessed my actions, the rest of the class had followed. That meant I had already gone through my first scolding session, where I had mostly been kicking myself mentally because I knew _this _particular conversation was coming.

"Purely defensive seals, Naruto?" The old man in front me inquired expressionless. "What part did you misunderstand in our talk about Fūinjutsu where you promised never to use it on others unless you gained explicit permission?"

I felt like exclaiming several expletive words. "Well, this case could go under 'self-defense' if you squint your eyes and tilt you head just a bi…" I trailed of when I noticed his expression just seemed to harden. "I do not truthfully feel sorry for what I've done, but I understand that I overreacted and should have handled the matter more maturely while paying closer attention to their age. I can explain the logic behind my behavior if so allowed, but I have taken into account already that several notions were wrong and needs to be changed."

He gave a slight inclination of his head as permission to continue.

"Firstly their behavior towards others showed a distinct lack of respect, which gave me three possibilities: accept it, change it slowly over longer time or deal with it as quickly as possible. I choose the last option, and I proceeded to secure them to their seats in order to lecture them about their faults. Since words are meaningless unless backed up with action, I needed to prove my words were worth heeding, so I gave them the simplest demonstration I could think of." I took a deep breath and concluded with; "This both showed unfamiliar physical attributes and a willingness to fight, which would hopefully make them hesitant to attack me after releasing them."

If he had been any other, face palming would have been an appropriate action. The old man simply took forth his pipe and began pulsing. Perhaps he needed something calming.

"Funeno-san has already explained to you why your actions were wrong?"

I nodded eagerly. "Yes. Such reasoning should only be used for older individuals and never on my comrades. I should calmly explain to them my points before using any force and never use such violent methods unless completely necessary."

"Then you can go."

"Thank you, Hokage-same." I jumped out of the chair and ran to the door, before glancing back at him with relieved smile. "I'll try not to cause any more problems, Jiji."

"Do not inflict any more injuries on yourself either."

"I'll try not to."

I closed the door softly after me and felt my legs tremble under me as tension left. That had gone better than expected. It was almost worthy of celebrating… Almost.

·

Kakashi engaged in a staring contest, the second I opened my front door. Several minutes passed by before I lost due to laughing. It was quite unfair that he had not given me a warning and time to compose myself before getting to business.

Everyone would have lost to that glare unprepared.

"Threatening your whole class the first day, huh, Naruto?"

I gave a long deep sigh. "Please, can we not do this? I have already been scolded, and as I told our honored Hokage, there were sound and logical reasoning behind my actions… I just miscalculated a bit."

He stayed expressionless on my doorstep. "You pointed a sharp weapon at them you had just demonstrated in action… on yourself."

"Alright, it was a big misjudgment." I admitted. "Perhaps I did not really take their age into account, and went a bit overboard with my lecturing, but it was a good point I presented to them. It was a very well-meant action, and that has to count for something."

He lifted a single eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I stepped back and indicated for him to enter, since it felt a bit silly to just stand there. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions and what not. It was a big overreaction, which left the image of me in their mind as…"

"Weird, creepy _and _violent."

"Exactly." I easily nodded my agreement. "It turned out your advice was excellent and I should have followed it, yada yada yada. You're the wise one, and what not, while I'm just an immature brat. Now as my wise elder, can I ask for your guidance in one specific matter, which has become very pressing?"

"I'm not the best to ask about social protocols." He looked distinctly uncomfortable. "But you could hardly do worse."

"Very funny, but rest assured that was not at all what I had in mind." I clapped slowly before once again indicating he could come in. "I have realized that I currently have one giant weakness, which most likely will be exploited by my classmate, since I sort of, kind of, threatened them." I took a deep breath before admitting. "I don't know how to fight."

He only stared at me.

"I know, asking now after this _incident _is bad timing, but the matter is very, very pressing."

The bastard stayed silent.

"Pretty please?" I tried.

He finally moved by biting his own thumb, making a couple hand seals and slapping his hand to the floor. The next moment after a brown pug appeared before me.

"Grapple until you feel satisfied. I can't deal with you right now."

I turned toward Kakashi together with the pug, whose expression best could be described with 'grumpy'. "You can summon dogs?" I managed to say without grinning.

Kakashi looked at me like something was wrong with my head. "Yes."

"So, you're saying you had the ability to conjure dogs out of thin air all this time, and have never once thought of using it? Even when you had no idea on what to do with me?" I eyed him with exaggerated disbelief. "When the thought 'hey, I have this little girl, wonder if she like puppies?' never crosses your mind, you know you're doing something wrong, nii-san."

The dog followed with, "So who's the girl?"

"Talk…." Something clicked in my brain and I whipped around to face the small dog. I lowered myself to his height and bowed slightly with excitement coursing through my body. "I'm honored to meet an exalted summon, please teach me oh dog-san of great wisdom and knowledge of the mysteries behind the grand technique which makes summoning capable, and how you physiology differ from normal animals to make you capable of intelligent thought and speech. Please accept me as your humble student."

Kakashi muttered, "You show him respect," at the same time as the dog answered with; "I like her."

"Off course you do." He sighed. "Naruto, this is Pakkun. Pakkun, Naruto. Since you obvious like each other, spend the day together. Pakkun, make sure this child stays out of trouble and get back before dinnertime."

The dog looked at his summoner like he had a screw loose. "When did you get a puppy?"

"She's not mine." Kakashi hurriedly answered, and I tried unsuccessfully to keep myself from sniggering.

"I'm an annoying tick he can't just seem to get rid of, so he had to eventually accept me." I explained cheerfully to the pug, whose expression did not change the least at the clarification.

"Just entertain her." Kakashi halfway groaned. I blinked at the sound of exasperation and gaped silently at the man.

I had done it. He had finally become annoyed.

"Before dinner." The copy-nin repeated before vanishing into thin air.

·

The next several hours was spent in the forest. The pug agreed after a bit of begging to explain tracking to me, knowledge which was mostly useless since I did not possess a nose capable of picking of individual scents and following them for miles upon miles.

Still, it was interesting, and it helped the dog was cute.

"So your spiritual energy is pulled through time and space, and made able to enter a body similar to your own by the summoner's physical energy." I summarized after a discussion about summons. "But aside from chakra theory, you don't know a whole lot about yourself."

He simply looked at me as if I had missed the entire point of our talk.

"I'm talking about your brain and vocal chords." I elaborated. "Summons who does not possess the necessary vocal chords to talk can still do so, the same with the ability to think. It seems many fundamental concepts to our thinking process applies for both humans and summons, while the individual species does have an influence on your thinking process it does not make it entirely alien. I wonder if chakra makes it possible for you to expand and develop higher brain capacity, or if this is simply another unexplainable fact of life?"

"You think too much, girlie."

I grinned. "Probably, but the fact that you register as any other animal, not accounting for higher chakra levels, for sensors and still possess the characteristic of your given species is very interesting. It makes one question a lot of things, which are normally seen as the undeniably truth." A squirrel moved about in the trees over our heads. "Such as what separates me from the forest life around us. If it's possible to change your own chakra network to register as nothing but another harmless animal…"

"Changing your own chakra would mean changing yourself." The pug frankly replied.

"A very likely possibility, yes." I was able to change my chakra network slightly with the Henge, but it was still in the human spectrum. My ability to sense chakra by touch had made me able to check out anything I could get my hands on, and so a variety of different animals' network had been documented by me. "But you should also theoretical be able to retain your own mind if it was done right."

The dog made the equivalent of a human shrug. "You said you wish to learn tracking, girlie?"

"Yes." I slowly admitted, mind still busy with turning over the newly learned facts.

"Then chase that squirrel."

I blinked and glanced upwards again, finding no sight of the animal. "But…"

I flinched away from the dog at the feeling of his jaw closing around my ankle. For one short second we just stared at each other, before the pug commanded yet again. "Chase it."

Pure theory was just not for anyone.

·

The hours spent at the academy mostly felt like a waste of time. When we we're not learning simple math and how to write, we we're feed propaganda about the nobleness of the ninja lifestyle and calling, not to forget the hours wasted on lectures about our duty to the village and the Hokage.

For goodness sake, I knew the man, and he was not a god. I could do without listening to others glorifying him and his predecessors, even if one of them technically was my biological father.

The only silver lining to the ordeal was I had access new knowledge in a broad spectrum of subjects in the form of new books. My primarily teacher had finally stopped trying to catch me off-guard with questions to the subject he was currently making the class go through at a snail pace and had accepted one of his students rarely was mentally presents to any of his lectures.

It was either that or finding another way to kill my boredom, which would most likely end with traumatizing my classmates even more than last time. No one dared approach me after the incident, and those I had chided gave me glances I had a hard time analyzing, since they all looked away the minute my gaze turned towards them.

It was slightly worrying and made me consider what I could possible do in order to stop them from carrying out whatever schemes where taking form in their minds.

A smaller part of me recognized that their behavior could simply be to protect themselves from any future incidents, better watchful than ignorant, and it did not have to mean they were considering vengeance in any form. Someone could have accepted it, but my paranoia was a bit too pronounced for me to continue on without doing anything in response.

It was time to formulate a plan.

·

The target was alone. It was the last one to confront, and because of that he was the last step to completing this self-appointed mission.

Time to get it over with.

"Your name is Ryou Fukui, right?" The black-haired child froze mid step and stared back at me with huge eyes darkened by his wide pupils to an extent which made it impossible to judge his eye color. The shock confirmed the question and made a verbal or bodily response unnecessary.

His name was a bit weird since the currency was named Ryō, and could mean something along 'fortunate'. He was most likely of a civilian family, merchants or the like, since no one else would have such a fascination with money.

Well, if you did not count Kakuzu, one half of the zombie combo of Akatsuki. If all ninjas were like him it would most likely lead to a string of tragedies ending with the destruction of this world.

My though train was getting me more than a bit off track.

"I have with the help of others seen the error of my actions the first day, and apologize for using Fūinjutsu and threatening you and several other classmates before trying to convey my message in another more peaceful way. I simply wanted to make it clear how wrong bullying is, and I hope that now that this matter has been cleared between us, we can coexist peacefully by each other side without any more incidences."

The kid blinked a few times and I decided to take that as a sign that he had understood.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and I hope our years together as classmates will be rewarding and pleasant for both sides. All the best luck in your efforts in trying to become a Ninja, Fukui-kun." I made a small polite bow and started walking away.

If my actions had slighted any of them enough to contemplate revenge, my formal apologize to each and every one of them would ensure that any outside would see their reasoning as petty and childish.

Now I only had to stay off their radar and not do anything to further upset them, and they would forget it had ever happened in a few years. Early memories were so easily forgotten, after all.

Whistling a happy tone I strolled into the forest, eyeing the leaves overhead for any sign of activity.

I had squirrels to catch.

·

The day I come across features I recognized, had been looking for since my first days wandering the streets, I merely blinked and looked back a second time.

It was quite hard to overlook pink hair, and as shameful as it is to admit I stalked the mother-daughter pair as they made their way through town to the playground and miniature Sakura was left on her own.

I could not even justify the stalking as I had Kakashi. She was a problem free kiddie who had no connection to the current vessel of my conscience. Harassing her would most likely not be as fun, and her personality of right now was not developed enough for it to even resemblance the grown-up Sakura for even a bit.

Not to mention I had not really liked her character in the series.

Which made me feel bad since an echo of the same dislike surfaced again when faced with a chibi version of said character, and she had done nothing yet to deserve those feelings. If the author of the manga had been a bit better at creating strong female characters and letting them have some glory, then I would probably not even have those feelings.

Ugh, don't go there. Imagining this whole world as the work of a single man, and my every interaction with another person would be nothing but messing with a product of said author's fantasy.

Nothing good could come of it.

My stalking continued while my mind tried to handle the new perspective of the world around me. I was able to feign innocence each time the girl looked my way by using the playgrounds swings, mechanical moving my legs until I didn't have to think about it.

Then another little girl began pointing at Sakura's forehead and made a remark, which prompted laughter from those around her.

Huh, I had actually forgotten that issue. Wasn't this supposed to be somewhat important for her?

My heels burrowed into the ground.

"Hey, how would you feel if I laughed at you for something genetically decided?" I yelled, striding towards them while part of me was still bewildered about the missing feeling of wind against my face. It seemed I had left part of myself on those swings, and the part which had followed me physical was not one for considering consequences. "I could point out your nose, the freckles on your brown-haired friend or the nasty birthmark on the other. They're traits none of you can change, so back off."

The unknown girl's face scrunched up and started reddening. "And what about you? You're just a tomato!"

Oh gods, had I just entered into a contest in petty insults?

I took a calming breath, remembering what had happened last time I tried to teach this lesson. Time to see if the results could be achieved another way. "Yes, I do have red hair, thank you for pointing out the obvious. Not polite, I have to add, since I didn't call you Beaky or something else just as demeaning. I know bullying an outsider can reinforce and strengthen bonds within a group, but would it not be more fun to just forget physical differences and be nice to her? Perhaps play?"

"We won't play with you!"

This was not going very well. "I never said anything, which could indicate I wished to do so. In fact I rather poke out my eyes, but I was speaking on behalf of the girl you just made fun of." I said with a gesture to Sakura, who was silently watching the proceedings with wide eyes.

"I rather eat dirt than talk with you!"

I resisted massaging my temples and instead opted to just stare at the red-faced raven-haired girl, who had a glint of real hate in her eyes. "This is going nowhere," I ended up muttering before unleashing versions of a half-finished work of restraining bonds. They had no training and had therefore no chance in escaping them, but an experienced ninja could dissolve them by merely flaring his or her chakra.

I pulled a sealing scroll forth and summoned writing tools with a flourish and presented it to Sakura, who looked back at me with open confusion. Well, she was apparently not into vengeance. Knowing this was nowhere mature or smart I drew a happy smiley face and a 'remember to be nice' on each of the girls cheeks.

They were released again with a flicker of chakra.

When somebody discovered this little stunt I could at least say I had gotten better at being child-friendly in my approach, I thought with a teeth-flashing grin, before making my escape.

* * *

_Author's note: We're nearing the action, while the crusade against bullying continues. Sorry, it's been some time. Been busy with moving and tying up some loose ends. _


	13. Chapter 13: Walking into fire… slowly

**Chapter 13: Walking into fire… slowly **

"Four hours and fifty minutes…" I mumbled in English. "Subject is dead. The suspected cause; lack of oxygen. The experiment shows a difference of ten minutes is enough for the victim to suffocate. Need to prolong time victim can be exposed in order to make this useful." I finished writing the note and closed the journal with a click while staring at the limp rodent in front of me.

Its black pearl-eyes stared back at me, wide and hollow.

They did not make me feel in any particular way. The guilt had long since passed, and now I only felt a slight sense of disappointment at the results my experiment yielded, and a bit more annoyance at the prospect of having to find new specimens. It was after all, only an animal, and not one I had learned to project a conscience and personality into by way of upbringing. It that had been a cat in front of me, I would be bawling my eyes out now.

I can only wonder if I will one day look down on a human corpse and only feel a slight academic curiosity.

The thought bring both dread and hope to me. If I cannot kill, I will never survive, and that dilemma promises a lot of future anguish. I could not ignore what being a ninja entailed, but perhaps walking the path of an assassin one step of the time would make it easier in the end.

I sighed and looked down on the pages in my hands.

According to my journal this was specimen number thirty-four which had expired due to faulty Fūinjutsu work. I had gotten the idea from the fake one I had made to pull off the joke on Kakashi. Not that he really had paid it any attention, and would mostly have entirely ignored it if I had not muttered out loud what I was writing. This one would likely get same lacking response, but I had decided anyway to use English in my writings.

It would take them a bit of time to break the 'code' they would see the language as, if they ever tried.

I flipped through the pages and stopped at 'chakra control', which numbered many hours failed work at climbing vertical surfaces and some success in the last few tries. The exact way to manipulate the chakra in my feet was now burned into memory and I had concluded nothing more could be learned after hanging from the ceiling for a full night like some overgrown bat. Everything indicated I was ready for the next step; water walking.

The lake before me was perfect for that purpose.

I pulled my t-shirt down and checked the pile of my belongings lay perfectly before sealing away the dead rodent's body away and putting the storage seal on top of it. Standing only in underpants and t-shirt at the edge of the lake made me thankful for the warm weather which would ensure I dried off quickly when I eventually abandoned the pursuit and went back for dinner.

Closing my eyes, I tried to calm myself and only focus of the warmth of chakra in my feet. I stood still for a moment, before taking a step forward, letting my foot hover just above the water for a moment, while some part of my brain started questioning my actions.

This felt slightly stupid.

I moved my foot back to solid ground and glared down at the wet depths, more irritated with myself than anything. All the excessive required was shaping the chakra the right way to float on the water. It didn't matter what body part was in contact with the water, and thus a hand should do the same as a foot, sparing me from even getting wet.

With an annoyed growl I sat down and slammed my hand at the water surface, wondering if my time in this universe was lowering my intelligence.

"Probably why the living storage seal is not further along." I grumbled, slamming my hand at the surface again with a slight difference in the formed chakra pathways, since it had passed through last time. "Why the dorm rips instead of protects, and why I can't make a damn camouflage."

I felt like screaming, but resorted to snarling at my own red-headed reflection.

Time was running out.

The massacre was coming and I had still not decided on anything specific. Half-formed plans lingered at the back of my mind, scribbled in my journal and showed on several of the papers spread across my apartment. At my next birthday I would turn the physical age of seven and that meant I had to decide, or the matter would be taken completely out of my hands.

Was it worth changing everything just to save some users of the Sharingan?

Human lives, I reminded myself. I would be saving human lives. Whether more would live or die if I acted was unknown. Utilitarianism stated "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong", but I simply did not know enough to predict the outcome of interfering. Also discussing ethics were dangerous, since there were so many branches, and a justified action could be made wrong if another method of thinking was used.

It was like running in circles, and the last couple of years dissections of the problem had been as productive as a hamster in its wheel.

Worthless, not to mention meaningless.

I needed someone else's input on the dilemma, someone native only to this world and who would not think me crazy or suspicious in asking pointed question and setting up farfetched hypothetical situations. Introspection had proved a lost course, and I could not stay on a sinking ship.

My eyes looked up from my reflection and across the pool of water, and the sight made me almost believe in some omniscient being capable of listening to prayers. Two small figures lay on far to the right on the other side of the lake, watching the skies above with a relaxed attitude I had not been able to assume for the last month. Their colorings and visible clan insignias made something jump in my memories, and I smiled faintly.

Shikamaru Nara, the fate of this universe now depends on you.

That sentence is cringe-worthy in so many ways I already feel doomed.

·

They both looked up when I appeared in front of them

Disturbing their cloud-watching with my problems was one of the milder things I had done, so adding a creep effect to my performance seemed only right. "You're Shikamaru Nara." It was not a question but a simple statement. I would not have approached if I had not been sure. "And you're of the Akimichi clan, Chō…ji Akimichi, right?" My memories of him were dim, but the name seemed to fit the spirals on his cheeks.

Technically he was not suffering from obesity, if I remembered correctly, and this was only a clan technique. But damn, it was sad to think he would have to live his whole life in an entirely different weight-class from his peers and be bullied for it.

Perhaps I should pay their class at the academy a visit.

Beside, we were both spiral people. Have to protect your own and all.

"I have a question for you Nara-kun."

I received a slight narrowing of eyes from the supposed genius. Good reaction. "Who are you?"

"Naruto Uzumaki." I gave a slight inclination as greeting. "One to two years above you at the academy. Nice to meet you."

Shikamaru echoed me, while Chōji sat in complete confusion for a moment before saying the same.

"So my question…" The expressionless gaze he was sending me made my lips quiver in an effort not to grin. He was such a cutie, spiky mess for a hair and everything. It made me want to squeeze his cheeks and never let go. "To understand my dilemma I must first present a hypothetical situation. I know you possess high intelligence so I have no doubt you would comprehend the problem I would be presenting… but whether you care to help me or not is yet unknown."

He shrugged his shoulders. "If it has nothing to do with reality, why use the energy?"

"Oh, I have never said anything about whether is related or unrelated to our current reality and the next foreseeable future." I could not resist grinning, feeling a predator on the hunt. "Since the answer I seek is linked to information, which would require quite the willing suspension of disbelief for anyone to properly set themselves in my stead, I'll instead try to go for the metaphors."

His eyebrows lifted, while Chōji's chips stayed surprisingly untouched.

I coughed before starting. "You find yourself standing before the decision of inaction or action and every nuance in between. You know precisely the outcome by not reacting, and therefore the cost of human lives and happiness, but you also know exactly how to handle future events in a way so lives would be saved later. The decision to act holds by contrast many unknowns. You don't know if more will be saved that way or if all will be lost in the end, because you simply lack the knowledge to plan for anything down that path. Your choice is between possible saving lives now, or doing so in the future. What would you choose?"

"Is this homework?" Chōji asked horrified. "Tell me it's not future homework!"

I grimaced before trying to come with a proper explanation to presenting them such a horrible situation. "Don't worry, it's n…"

"You don't have a forehead protector." Shikamaru mumbled, making me lose focus. We stared silently at each for a moment, before I realized he was not going to say anything else. It made me slightly annoyed because it made it harder to guess if he was suspecting me of using Henge, which I actually was, and didn't trust me, or he had just decided to ignore me.

"Hard situations rarely wait for you to age." I tried.

The boy genius nodded before closing his eye with a look of resignation. "If you know something is going to happen and say nothing, then is it not partly your fault too? It you can't decide then it's better to tell an adult and let them deal with the consequences than ask me. Don't bo…"

"… borther me." I said in unison with him, my smile slowly fading. "Any form of action would be better than being passive." I had already known that, so many praised people of my former world had said similar words, but the acceptance of the words meaning did nothing to remove my fear or insecurities.

I took a deep intake of breath in a futile effort to calm myself. "Thank you, Nara-kun. I know what I must do now."

·

An unknown fire took root in my in the weeks after. Every single limp of my body was tingling with anticipation, making it hard to sit still and even harder to stay unnoticed in class. I was absent-minded and replied in only short sentences, but even our current teacher called on my more time than the last year in a single month.

It was in a way exiting, thrilling even, to plan for an evet which could very likely kill me.

I had the means to do something about the massacre, and made the choice I needed I regard of whose fate to change of whose to stay clear off. It was all in motion, and I only needed to properly set it up and execute the plan in a way which made my response and knowledge believable.

No one had forcefully removed my Henge; I was safely incognito from the villagers as a redhead, while still wandering around occasionally in another Henge looking like me without dye and patches on my cheeks. There had been no bright mind among the villagers who had connected any dots, and I would have to replicate the results with a cast of intelligent ninjas now.

It was a challenge worth every minute spent bowed over heaps of papers and trying to perfect the techniques my plan depended on.

I needed to be invisible, to avoid the power of dōjutsu.

And I was succeeding.

Maniacally laughter seemed very appropriate if not for the fact I was currently in the middle of a class.

·

The first test in the intended environment for the technique was for lack of better words, exhausting. My paranoia was slightly to blame, and it had not gotten better with the knowledge that the sighting of one wrong experiment could incriminate me later on. My coming and goings had been rather irregular for years, which helped me vanish without rousing suspicion coupled with the fact I had been trying and perhaps sometimes been successful at escaping my watchers.

There is no way if I can ever be sure, and since I don't know the mechanics of the crystal ball in the Hokage's offices, there was a chance I could be found even if I dodged every watchful gaze directed my way.

You can never be too paranoid

Executing the technique inside my bathroom after a bath, insuring the probability of someone looking was as low as it could be, was the best I could do. After that I only had to make my way through the open door, an open window and start making my way through the city in miniature form.

I was currently a squirrel, a squishy form with no way of defending myself if attacked. The almost invisible band of paper covered in seals around my neck served as a stabilizer, which would insure my mind was not lost in the process of transforming my own chakra-network to that of a rodent, and I had no idea what would happen if it was destroyed.

Calling this risky and stupid was an understatement.

In other news, I had finally gained some insight into the workings of summoning and how summoned creatures differed from natural. Pakkun would've been proud I was sure, if I had had some way of telling him without exposing myself and my plan.

No matter, if everything went according to plan and I did not die nor lose my mind, I would have the opportunity to tell the pug and Kakashi later, when the first act of this play had finished.

Until then, I saw no other option than stalking Sasuke in order to make sure the massacre didn't happen while I was preoccupied with something else, since I had no idea about the date Itachi would slaughter his clan. It was a waste of time I saw no way of avoiding, but at least it would only be for some hours every day. There was still plenty of time to set everything up, if somebody did not see through my disguise and decided the fake squirrel was better off dead than alive.

I hoped the future broody bastard had a bit of heart to appreciate the trouble I went through to insure he was not the 'last Uchiha'.


End file.
